If You See Kate
by SabreDae
Summary: 1998. It's just a small bookstore. She's nineteen; he's twenty nine. AU of Beckett and Castle's first meeting before Allison Tisdale's murder, though the later chapters continue on from "Flowers for Your Grave" and stay mostly AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Since watching Castle, the song If U C Kate by McFly has taken on a few new meanings for me. Originally, I wondered about making a fanvideo running on the storyline that Kate disappeared after Castle proposed, and I was going to make a whole fake newspaper article about it, but I don't know, I just never did. Then one night I was listening to the song and imagined this instead. I hope you enjoy what I've written. There will be a couple more chapters to this but not many. **

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><p><em>1998<em>

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><p>She's just browsing, staring at the shelves filled with classics, literature that has been read and loved for decades and centuries. She loves those kinds of books, the ones that tell stories of an old world so different from the one she lives in. Most of them she's read before. <em>Emma <em>was her first, though she's long since worked her way through Jane Austen's entire works, moving through Steinbeck before her high school class even touched one of his novels. She fingers the spine of Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby_, recalling the evenings she'd spent curled in an armchair, entranced. But it's _1984 _she picks up, opening to read again what has become the familiar opening sentence.

_It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen_.

"Excuse me."

The small voice startles her. She hadn't even realised she'd been lost in her mind, completely oblivious to the rest of the bookshop. Now that she's jolted back into the real world she can hear the loud chatter coming from a few shelves over where some famous author sits signing books. She glances down and finds that it's a small, red-headed girl who has spoken to her.

"Yes?" she asks uncertainly, hoping that the kid's not going to tell her she can't find her parents or something.

She watches the little girl grimace before saying, "You're in the way."

Confused, Kate glances around, wondering how on earth this impossibly small child can't move past her in the aisle before it dawns on her that, as absurd as it sounds, the girl wants to get to the shelf she's currently standing in front of. She blinks, tries to make sense of the notion, before stepping aside.

The girl is quick, decisive almost, in picking up _Moby Dick_, stretching onto her tiptoes to reach the shelf that houses the book. It bewilders Kate. She's only nineteen and she didn't read that particular book until she was twelve; the girl standing in front of her doesn't look as if she's even started school. She wouldn't normally talk to a kid, especially one that's quite clearly unaccompanied, but there's something about this girl and it isn't just that she's picked up _Moby Dick, _plonked herself down on the carpet and started reading.

"Are you…okay there?"

The girl hums an affirmative, not once taking her bright, electric eyes off of the pages.

"You don't need me to go and find your mom or something, do you?"

"No, she's in California."

That sounds odd. Kate scrutinises the girl before deciding that she's too well dressed to be homeless.

"Right," she nods. "And your dad-"

"-Over there somewhere," the girl replies, pointing somewhere to Kate's left. "Have you read this?"

"Yeah, I've read _Moby Dick_-"

"-I like the bit when Queequeg finds Ishmael in his bed. It's funny," she interrupts again, giggling slightly.

"You've read it before?!" Kate is astonished. Just who is this girl?

She nods. "Daddy likes for me to read, so do I. Daddy read it to me before."

"How-" She stops speaking as a loud trilling sounds in her bag. She pulls out the black cell phone her parents bought her when they discovered that no matter what they tried they wouldn't be able to stop her sneaking out every night unless they nailed her windows shut and decided that perhaps it was better to just give her a cell phone (even though it had been darn expensive) so that they could always reach her. "Hello?"

"It's me."

"Oh, hey Babe, what is it?

"Alexis?" someone calls loudly at the end of the aisle, spotting the girl sitting on the floor and exclaiming, "Oh there you are!"

Kate covers the phone and looks at the girl. "Is that your dad?"

"Yep!" she answers, shutting the book to send a smile at her father. Distantly Kate hears the electronic buzz that is her boyfriend speaking to her.

"Who is this, Alexis?"

Alexis shrugs and replaces the book on the shelf.

"Kate?" It's a half yell that she finally hears properly.

"Kate? That's your name?" Alexis' father asks, smiling easily at her. Her eyes flick down to his lips before meeting his again, seeing the same luminous colour in them as in his daughter's.

She nods, returning her cell phone to her ear, as he reaches out his hand to her. She cradles the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, so that she can shake his proffered hand as he introduces himself.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Rick and you've obviously already met Alexis here. Sorry if she was bothering you, by the way. She's only four, so she doesn't always realise she's being a pain in the tushie."

"I wasn't being a pain," Alexis mutters sulkily.

Before she can assure him that her daughter was extraordinarily polite, she hears Jason ask, "Are you there? Kate?"

"Yeah, sorry. Someone was just talking to me," she says, shooting Rick a look.

"Rick. Castle," he says again, pointing at his chest, eyes searching hers for some kind of reaction or recognition. Something vaguely rings in the back of her mind, but she's stuck trying to focus on whatever it is her boyfriend's saying to her.

"Who was that?"

"The guy who's talking to me," she answers, rolling her eyes as Rick mouths questioningly, 'guy?' "What were you saying, babe?"

"I asked if you still wanted rescuing." He's speaking louder now, obviously frustrated that her attention isn't solely on him. But she finds that instead of worrying over that, her cheeks are flushing because she can see that Alexis and her father can now hear every word of their conversation, not just her side of it. And the look Rick Castle is giving her makes her want to dive behind another bookcase.

"Erm, I have no idea where my mom is now, whether she's still in the queue or what so a ride out of here would be great."

"Which bookstore are you at again?" Jason asks.

"Barnes and Noble," she tells him.

"Okay, be there soon," he promises, hanging up without so much as a goodbye.

"Sorry, you were saying?" she asks Rick, thoroughly confused from having two conversations at once.

"You need rescuing? What are you, some kind of damsel in distress?"

"Not quite," Kate assures him with a laugh. "No, I was meant to be going out with some friends, but my mom dragged me out here with her instead. Said that there was some book she just 'had to buy.'" She shrugs because she still doesn't quite understand that mentality. It's just a book, after all, a book that will still be in the bookstore the next day and a thousand other days after that. "So Jason, my boyfriend, offered to come and pick me up so we can still go ice skating with everyone else. The rink is never as busy once Christmas has been and gone."

"I see," he nods, trying to keep the disappointment off his face. Really she's quite something this woman. She's not just pretty, she's classically beautiful.

It's only a beat, a passing moment, but they can both feel the awkwardness descending upon them. "Well," she finally says, "I should probably head out front so that Jason doesn't have to park his bike."

"Sure," he replies, giving her another gentle grin and sweeping his arm aside to gesture her first.

"You're walking me to the door?"

"Well, you are a damsel in distress, after all," he tells her, taking Alexis' hand as they follow her. Really, he's seeking any excuse to spend more time with her. They've only just met, known each other for all of five minutes – and he doesn't even know her surname – but that's enough for him to be thoroughly captivated. There aren't many strangers who'll talk to you like she has.

"It's a bookstore. And it's the middle of the day. I hardly think someone's going to be brave enough to mug me or something in front of so many people," she laughs, the sound warming his heart. It feels like weeks since he's laughed.

"You never know," he counters, opening the store's door for her. "New York's a dangerous city."

She rocks on the balls of her feet on the sidewalk, pushing her hands into her pockets to combat the chill. It reminds him that although Alexis is still wearing her duffle, the coat isn't buttoned up. He's crouched on the ground, making sure she doesn't catch a cold when the Ducati pulls up to the curb and its rider removes his helmet.

Kate skips over; the sound of her Chuck Taylors scuffing the paving slabs draw his attention, and he watches as she elegantly slides one leg over the seat of the bike, somehow managing to fit on in the tiny space behind her long-haired boyfriend.

"Thanks for escorting me, Rick," she calls before she pushes the helmet Jason has given her onto her head.

Jason fixes him with a stare, quite clearly sizing him up, so he just replies, "No problem," and turns back to Alexis so he doesn't have to watch them leave. "Come on, pumpkin, let's go home."

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I think there will probably be at least three chapters. There could be more, but I haven't decided yet whether I want to include them or not. Anyway, let me know what you think!**

**Sidenote: I'm not sure how quickly this will be updated at the moment. I was meant to be doing the sequel to the Wedding of the Century, of which the first chapter is ready, but you know, working on two stories at the same time doesn't always work that well. Still, we'll see how it goes. **

**Thanks for taking the time to read.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Whoa, guys! I had so many emails from fanfiction this morning because so many of you added this story to your alerts/favourites. Thank you! You've all made me really happy, and kind of eager to write this second chapter. Extra special thanks go to hfce, LadyAilith, rckbfan90, TORONTOSUN and whoever the anonymous person is for leaving me reviews. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. **

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><p>He still hasn't taken them down, the pictures that is. It's been a month since the divorce papers were filed and he still can't bring himself to take their wedding photo down from the bedroom wall, or change the screensaver on his laptop so that every time he switches it on, he doesn't have to see the last holiday photo they had taken of the three of them.<p>

"Richard, darling, you asked me to watch Alexis tonight, so shouldn't you be heading out while the night is still young?" his mother asks. He can feel her pitying gaze even though he's not even staring in her direction.

Sighing, he shuts his laptop, hitting the save button first on his blank document, and stands. It had been his mother's suggestion to get out of the loft for the evening, to go out and celebrate the approach of a new year, a new lease on life. Quite frankly, he'd have preferred staying in with his daughter, waiting for the fireworks to start so they could watch them from her bedroom window before he tucked her in for the night with the promise that everything would be better in 1999.

In his bedroom he throws on a jacket without even checking it's clean. He only stops briefly in the living room to press a kiss to the top of Alexis' head and promise he'll see her in the new year before he heads out the door and down to the street.

Already people are drunk, underage college kids stumbling past him as he heads to his favourite bar and it's only just past eight o'clock. The bar is busy, though not heaving with people, when he pushes through the door, almost colliding with a couple staggering out and yelling about going to Times Square so they don't miss the ball drop.

He drops into a stool at the bar, nodding at the barman to catch his attention.

"Single malt whiskey please," he mutters, pulling out his wallet so he can slide the bills across the bar, skirting around a pool of spilt liquid.

The drink burns as he knocks the entire glass straight back, determined the alcohol will make him forget the look on Alexis' face when he had to tell her 'Mommy wouldn't be there this Christmas' and the flare of anger in his mind every time he thinks back to that day when things ended.

He's lost count of how many whiskeys he's had burn their way down his throat when he sees her. It's the laugh that draws him out of his dark thoughts, like a beacon on a black night. He turns instinctually, drawn like a moth to a flame until he sees her hidden away at the end of the bar, laughing so much that she's almost falling backwards off her stool. She's glorious, hair flying backwards, gold in the ambient overhead lighting.

He stares, watching her every move – the way she rests her chin on her palm, her delicate wrist bending in support, and the low upturn of her lips as she smiles, mouth opening wide for her loud laugh. He can't stop himself from getting up and moving towards her.

"Hey, Kate," he says.

"You again?" she exclaims, quite clearly well on her way to being hammered.

"Me again," he confirms, unable to stop his own smile from building. It kind of hurts his facial muscles. He hasn't smiled this much in so long. "Can I buy you are drink?"

"Sure," she replies easily, "double vodka and Coke."

Whilst they wait for their drinks, he asks, "Jason not with you?" He hasn't seen a sign of the guy once in the five minutes he spent closely observing her.

"Ugh, no," she groans. "Apparently, his stupid druggie friends are more fun than I am."

"You're here alone?" He's shocked by the thought. She's too beautiful to be alone. She must have guys lining up around the block to hang around with her. In his head, she's a socialite, the girl who was most popular in high school, had a great group of friends in college.

She waves her hand, shaking her head, both gestures sloppy. "Jennifer and Dan just left. Kinda glad," she admits, "being the third wheel is really not my thing."

"Well, mind if I keep you company? No sense in both of us being alone, right?"

She hesitates. His heart stutters. "Right," she finally agrees.

It's awkward again. Neither of them know what to say. She's feels embarrassment close to the surface after basically telling him that her boyfriend isn't all that, that he's effectively abandoned her to a drunk night by herself when all she'd wanted was to throw the new year in with him. At least that way she'd have someone to kiss for the end of the countdown. He's still stuck wondering why he cares so much about whether she'll let him spend time with her.

"So, you know why I'm alone; why are you here? Don't you have a wife along with that daughter of yours?"

"She left me," he mumbles, looking down into the depths of his glass.

"Crap, I'm sorry-"

"-It's okay. It's not like we had anything left to salvage after I caught her cheating with her director. It's just still rough; fresh, you know."

She nods, though, of course, she's nineteen; she doesn't have any idea. Her parents are happily married, as close now as they were when they were just high school sweethearts. She wants to ask how long ago it was, but can't help feeling it'll just bring down the atmosphere even more. Instead, she signals the bartender and tells him, "The next round's on me," ordering Rick another whiskey for him to drown his sorrows in rather than her.

"You got ID?"

She fiddles with her purse, drawing out the plastic card. Her breath is trapped, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she hands it across and prays that the fake is good enough. The barman hands it back to her without a word, taking two glasses and filling them with ice. Before she can stow the card back inside her bag though, it's plucked from between her fingers.

"Katherine Harlow, huh?" he reads, flicking his eyes over to her.

"One and the same," she nods, blushing as he gives her a grin and tells her he likes it, that it suits her. She knows she should have told him the truth, but what's one lie going to do? It's not like she's ever going to see him again.

Before they know it, they've been talking (and drinking) for hours, and the bar's television has been switched on, displaying the scene at Times Square in the final moments leading up to 1999.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five," they chant together.

At four, she smiles, teeth flashing, eyes twinkling.

At three he returns it, shifting unconsciously in his seat so that their arms are touching.

At two, she looks down at their joined skin then back to his face; or rather, his lips.

At one, he thinks, "_What the Hell," _and melds his lips with hers.

Then it's a flurry of movement, pulling away and shouting, "Happy New Year," with everyone else in the bar. People rush past, making for the streets and before she can leave, he grabs the ever present pen from his pocket and scrawls his number on her arm. He blinks, committing her shy smile when they drew apart to memory. And just like that, she's gone.

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><p><strong>AN: So let me know what you think! Thanks again for reading. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Seriously, thank you so much guys! I'm so gratified by your response to this little story. I wasn't really expecting that much, so I'm so glad so many of you are enjoying it. The reviews I read last night and this morning cheered me up so much!**

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><p><em>1999<em>

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><p>He doesn't know why he can do it all of a sudden. He just can. He sat down one day, just a few days into the New Year, opened his laptop and when he looked at the blank screen that represented his next novel, all of a sudden there were words, so many words, springing into his mind and begging to be committed to the page. He hasn't written so much since his first ever novel, the piece of trash he never even submitted for publishing. But being busy is good. If he's not writing, he's taking Alexis to school, picking her up, getting the groceries, or making sure his daughter's not bored. He doesn't have time to think about Meredith and his divorce anymore.<p>

He's already submitted the first three chapters of _Derrick Storm_ to his new agent. She's maybe more critical than Robert ever was, but she's been ruthless in renegotiating his contract with _Black Pawn. _Although they didn't quite hit it off to begin with, she's growing on him, and he's looking forward to receiving her comments on what he's got so far. Though, it'd be nice to meet her in person at least once, he decides.

In the back of his mind though, he wonders a little about Kate.

The call comes out of the blue, a number he doesn't even recognise, and for a second before he picks the handset up and says, "Hello?" he entertains the notion that it's her.

"Have you seen her?" It's a man. A gruff, impolite one at that.

"Sorry who is this?" he enquires.

"It's Jason. So have you seen her?"

He wracks his brain for a moment, trying to work out if he knows a Jason. He's just about to accuse the caller of wasting his time with prank calls when he remembers that her boyfriend had been called Jason, hadn't he? "Who, Kate?"

"Yeah, she's been missing for a few days; we're worried about her. I found this number written down on a piece of paper tucked in her journal." Rick doesn't miss the tone of accusation colouring Jason's voice. "So have you seen her?"

"Afraid not," he answers honestly.

Jason sighs. "Right well, if you do hear from her at all, call me back on this number would you?"

"Of course," Rick replies not a moment too soon. He stares at the phone, the dull buzz of the disconnected line ringing in his ears as the worry begins to hit him. Does Jason know? Is that why she's disappeared? He hopes she's alright, that whatever's happened, it's not because of him, because of their kiss.

When he leaves the writing and the loft behind to go and pick Alexis up from school, he can't help inspecting every face he passes, searching for her exquisite hazel and gold eyes, or a wavy flash of her chestnut hair. He doesn't see her, of course. The universe just isn't that serendipitous.

All the way back, he continues however, and the action doesn't go unnoticed by Alexis when he cranes his neck around to get a second look at a woman who had the exact same colour as Kate, though it wasn't hanging loosely down her back, but pulled into braid. She's too short though.

"What are you doing, Dad?" she asks when he turns his head back around.

"Just looking for someone, pumpkin."

"Who?"

He doesn't know whether to tell her. What if he worried her? Still, he's never lied to her before and he doesn't want to start now. "Do you remember the lady from the bookstore a couple of weeks ago?"

She nods. "She's read _Moby Dick_ too, Dad."

He smiles, the emotion wearing thin on his face at the new piece of information. "Lots of people have read it. It's a good book, Alexis. What I was going to say though, was that I just found out she's missing, so I'm looking for her."

He watches as his daughter seems to think on this for a moment. "I can help you look," she offers. It's so sweet, and adorable, and he can't help wondering what on earth he did to deserve this perfect child. There's no way he was ever that kind and generous when he was four. His eyes crinkle as he smiles, and drops her hand, taking her little body under the armpits instead to hoist her up onto his shoulders.

"Guess you'd better sit up here so you can see then, pumpkin."

She's just as disappointed as him when they make it back to the loft and haven't managed to spot Kate anyway.

"Maybe we'll see her tomorrow," he says, hoping however that Alexis will forget all about it. He doesn't want this to turn into some kind of game, because it's a serious situation. Anything could have happened.

After a day, he's ringing Jason back, looking for news and feeling disappointed when her boyfriend reports that they still haven't found her. There's still nothing the next day, or the day after, or for a week, and then the guy just stops answering his calls, the douchebag that he is. By then he's lost all hope. He doesn't know what to think. Is he not answering because Kate's been found safe and sound and he doesn't need him anymore or worse because she's been found but discovered too late.

He remembers telling her that New York is a dangerous place and wonders if maybe he unwittingly hit the nail on the head that day and if something terrible has happened to her. It has him checking through all the recent news stories, but the only stories he finds are about the murder of a lawyer called Johanna Beckett, a car crash that killed four people and injured seven more, a fire downtown and a worryingly large spate of other crimes that have been taxing the city police since before Christmas.

Alexis notices that he's become obsessed with reading the paper too, but he doesn't tell her why or let her read what he's reading. His urge to protect her is greater than ever.

It takes him weeks to stop looking in the newspaper for the name Katherine Harlow every morning when he gets up and eats breakfast with Alexis. But he has to stop. It's becoming too depressing to purposefully search out and read all of the news stories about the violence and deaths in the city.

It's another few months before he finally becomes too busy with research for his book, training with the CIA and a seductress of an agent, Sophia Turner who's more than willing to help inspire him late at night, to keep searching for signs of the young woman who invaded his thoughts and then just disappeared one day.

After a while, he begins to wonder if maybe he imagined the whole thing, if she was just some figment of his imagination that developed just to help him get over his writer's block and out of the funk that his divorce put him in.

Before he knows it, it's been a year and life has moved on. His book, _Derrick Storm, _is number one of the Times Bestseller List, his daughter is doing amazingly in school and he's already been given the greenlight for another three Derrick Storm novels, the first of which he's a quarter of the way through already. Things are good. Okay, so his tryst with Sophia didn't end all that well, but things are looking up because he's got that date tonight with Gina, his agent of all people. He doesn't need to think about Katherine Harlow anymore.

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><p><strong>AN: So this is the third chapter. There will definitely be a fourth chapter taking place in 2009, during the episode Flowers for your Grave. As for whether there will be others, I'm toying with the idea of doing a related oneshot to show what's going on with Kate during this chapter, and could possibly run into some other episodes of the first season. If you would like that please do review to say so. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed! I know I told some of you that this chapter would probably be up yesterday, so sorry for the delay. I was at a concert Tuesday night and didn't get home until nearly three o'clock in the morning because the London Underground wasn't running, so I was too tired to write on Wednesday and then some stuff happened on Thursday so I ended up being too busy. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I'm undecided on it.**

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><p><em>2009<em>

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><p>She takes a steadying breath before opening the car door. She has to do this. The department, her team, they're all counting on her to push aside her stupid anxieties and worries over whether he's going to remember and bring him in. All it takes to get her past the two security guards and woman with a guestlist stood at the double glass front doors is a flash of her badge. She half wishes it had taken longer for them to let her through to the book launch party, that she could have prolonged the inevitable meeting for at least a tiny bit. In her mind, that in itself is odd. She's loved every single one of his books for some time now; she should be delighted to be at the launch party for the next <em>Derrick Storm <em>novel.

The deep red lighting unsettles her as she steps inside and looks around for his roguish hair and devilishly handsome face. Someone kindly points her in the right direction of the author, rolling their eyes because they think she's just another one of his bimbos, after his autograph and his money. They couldn't be anymore wrong, though.

"Mr Castle?" she calls ahead, already internally squirming as he starts to turn around.

Once more his pen is at the ready. "Where would you like it?" he asks, grinning.

She's pictured that smile and those eyes a thousand times since she last saw them. Every time she opens one of his books, she sees his face smiling up at her from his book jacket. But it's not the same as seeing him in person; the picture isn't genuine. It doesn't capture how his eyes light up when he truly smiles, how one of his cheeks dimples while the other doesn't. On the book jacket, he looks like he's smirking because he knows he's got you. In real life, in her memories, he is always smiling like a blind man taught to see.

"Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. We need to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight."

She can't help smirking a little at the flabbergasted look that completely takes over his face. She still gets that tiny rush every time she sees it when she arrests someone. They always think they're so invincible criminals. She just hopes one day she gets to watch the son of a bitch who murdered her mother's face transform like it.

Suddenly a red-headed girl appears at his shoulder, her animated expression of both amusement and slight concern a stark contrast to the stunned one that seems to have frozen on his face.

Her heart stutters as she recognises her. It's Alexis. But she's changed so much.

"_Well, it has been ten years," _Kate thinks to herself. Her eyes pass over the girl who was only four when she'd last seen her. That day in the bookstore has been ingrained in her memories for some time. Although she's older, taller, quite clearly in the middle of her teens, Alexis' father, Richard Castle doesn't look as if he's aged a day.

"That's new," Alexis says, taking the pen from her father's hand and going back to whatever she was doing while he spirals, not knowing what to do.

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><p>The fact that he's sat in an interrogation room, that there are likely people watching him through the two-way mirror doesn't bother him in the slightest. All he's thought about since he turned around with his sharpie held aloft is those eyes.<p>

He would recognise them anywhere, he's sure.

He's jolted from his memory by the door opening and closing loudly to his right.

"Mr Castle, you've got quite a rap sheet for a best-selling author," she says, not bothering with pleasantries since she already told him everything she wanted him to know about her at the party. "Disorderly conduct, resisting arrest."

He shrugs, he knows what she's trying to do. It's _her _room, she's in control and she's already trying to make that clear to him by first her choice to remain standing, so she towers above him, and listing his misdoings. He's done much the same with characters in his books. "Boys will be boys," he replies.

She smiles humourlessly. Of course he would think this was some kind of game. He'd been just the same back then.

"Says here that you stole a police horse?"

"Borrowed," he corrects.

"Ah." The next part is the kicker though. "And you were nude at the time."

"It was spring," he explains.

"And every time the charges were dropped." Finally she drops into the seat across from him, finding that her initial tactic hasn't worked. Every attack she makes, he meets her midway, parrying with some trick of his own that sends her back to square one.

"What can I say? The mayor's a fan but if it makes you feel any better I'd be happy to let you spank me."

She wonders when he turned into this cocky prat. She doesn't remember him like that. She remembers him as the sweet and responsible father who'd been determined to escort her safely to her ride, the chatty drinking companion who'd been all too willing to confide his troubles of the heart in her. She wishes she knew what changed. Because, all these years she's been thinking of what this moment between them might be. And the reality does not live up to the fantasy.

She doesn't rise to his suggestion, just opens the file in front of her. "Mr Castle, this whole bad boy charm-thing that you've got going might work for bimbettes and celebutantes; me? I work for a living, so that makes you one of two things in my world: either the guy who makes my life easier or the guy who makes my life harder, and trust me you do not wanna be the guy who makes my life harder."

She knows she's too close. She can practically feel his breath on her skin as he appraises her.

He's looking at her eyes again, the soulful green and the flash of gold. They look just like hers, but when he looks at the bigger picture? Her hair, her pinched lips, the work slacks and buttoned up shirt? He's left confused.

She'd said her name was Kate Beckett, not Kate _Harlow_. That's not a problem though – she could have married, he thinks, though he sees no rings adorning her finger.

All that's going on in the back of his mind as he tells her, "Okay," with another cheeky smirk because he can see that he's finally beginning to affect her, even if it's just that she's becoming slightly annoyed and kind of frustrated with him.

She leans back and slides the first picture towards him, thinking she's finally victorious. "Allison Tisdale, daughter of real estate mogul Jonathan Tisdale."

"She's pretty," he mutters.

"She's dead," Kate states, continuing even whilst he raises his head in shock. "Did you ever meet her?" She looks up from the picture too, finds him watching her. "Book signing?" she suggests. She's watching him hopefully, wishing that she's the only person he met at a book signing of his. The fact that he doesn't seem to remember her, hasn't said anything to even hint that he does, makes her feel confident enough to start pushing again, searching for his buttons. "Charity event?"

"It's possible. She's not in my little black book if that's what you're asking."

"What about this guy?" she pulls the photo of Marvin Fisk from the folder and covers the face of Allison Tisdale with it. "Marvin Fisk, small claims lawyer."

"Most of my claims tend to be on the erm… _large _side."

She rolls her eyes. Of course he's the kind of guy who enjoys teasing her with euphemisms and innuendos.

"So what's this got to do with me?" he asks, having had enough of sitting in the interrogation room.

"Fisk was found murdered in his office two weeks ago. I didn't put it together until we saw the Tisdale crime scene tonight," she says as she retrieves the photo of Allison Tisdale's body out.

He draws back, quite clearly recognising the scene from _Flowers for your Grave _as easily as she did.

He says as much, so she pulls out the next image.

"And this is how we found Marvin Fisk. Right out of _Hell Hath No Fury_." She can't wait to hear how he's going to try and talk himself out of it. She doesn't even realise how overconfident she's become, doesn't realise that he's doubting his own assurance that the woman interviewing him couldn't possibly be the young girl he met in _Barnes and Noble _in just after Christmas in 1998 and kissed on New Year's Eve.

"Looks like I have a fan," he says, hoping to trap her.

"Yeah, a really deranged fan."

"Oh you don't look deranged to me."

"What?" She could kick him, she wants to. All she has to do is uncross her legs and _accidentally_ have the pointed tip of her shoe's toe collide forcefully with his shin.

His tongue pokes out. "_Hell Hath No Fury_? Angry Wiccans out for blood? Come on," he laughs, oblivious to the level of her love for each and every one of his books. "Only hardcore Castle groupies read that one."

She shakes her head, disbelieving of how insulting he actually is. Why did she ever think it would be a good idea to kiss him? Somewhere in her apartment, she still has his phone number. Once or twice, on the hard nights, she's even thought about calling him. "Do any of these g-groupies ever write you letters?" she asks, stuttering over the word she can't bear to use in relation to herself.

He nods.

"Disturbing letters?"

"Oh, all my fanmail's disturbing. It's an occupational hazard."

"_Did he just say that _boastfully_?" _

"Because sometimes in cases like this we find that the killer attempts to-"

"-contact the subject of his obsession," he continues, surprising her. "I'm also pretty well versed in psychopathic methodologies – another occupational hazard." She's staring at him. For a brief second she saw through this little façade of his, and then that arrogant tone came back.

"_Does he think he's better at this than _me? _Nobody's better at this job than me._"

"Did you know you have gorgeous eyes?"

It snaps her out of it. This has gone too far. He's too close. What if he knows? She snatches the pictures back from across the table, putting them back into the folder as quickly as she can because she just wants out of that room. It's supposed to be _her_ room, but somehow it's quickly becoming his.

"So I take it that you won't have any objection to us going through your mail?"

"Knock yourself out," he tells her as she gets up to leave, then raising his finger to follow her like something's just occurred to him. "Can I get copies of those?"

She pauses, wondering if maybe her read on him is wrong, if he's actually just completely morbid. "Copies?"

"I have this poker game, it's mostly other writers – Patterson, Cannell, you know bestsellers – you have no idea how jealous those would make them."

"Jealous?" She literally can't believe this.

"That I have a copycat. Oh my gosh, in my world, that's the red badge of honour, that's the criminal Cooperstown."

The file drops from her hand and she's leaning over the table until she's right in his face. It's just the kind of behaviour she can't stand, people who have no respect for the dead. "People are dead, Mr Castle," she tells him bluntly.

His mouth opens and he looks away, her gaze too intent as he replies, "I'm not asking for the bodies, just the pictures." He knows he's probably pushing too far, but he's kept this persona up for so many years that sometimes it's hard to stop it taking over. It's what happens as he bites his lip and holds her glare.

"I think we're done here."

* * *

><p>All that night, lying in his own bed – finally – he's stuck thinking about her. Whiskey addled memories of luscious gold hair, unbelievably soft lips, flushing cheeks and the tang of vodka on his tongue fill his mind, before those eyes, those beautiful, beautiful eyes come back to haunt him.<p>

"_It has to be her_," he thinks. He's never seen eyes like them again until tonight. He has to know if it's her. Forsaking the comfort of his bed, he heads back into his office and reboots his laptop. As soon as it's finished loading, he opens the internet and begins searching.

Come morning, he hasn't discovered much more than her date of birth. November 17th 1979. That puts another hole in his theory. She's two years too young to be the girl he met ten years ago. But why does she look so much like her?

He has to go back to the 12th precinct; it's as simple as that.

* * *

><p>He enjoys how flustered she is by his arrival and her captain's refusal to budge on him working with her to solve the murders of Allison Tisdale and Marvin Fisk.<p>

He can still feel her hostility as they each read through piles of his fanmail. Whilst she reads, he takes the opportunity to watch her and the flick right of her eyes. Frankly, he watches her all day. He can feel the urge to ask her whether she's ever been to one of his book signings or if they've met before, but he's afraid. He knows as soon as he opens his mouth to tell her that the furrow of her brow is cute that he's made the right choice in not saying anything because she's more than hostile towards him.

When he reads her, he doesn't even know where half of it is coming from. He didn't consciously think any of it, it's just coming from his mouth and as soon as it leaves, he regrets the words. She looks hurt, a depth of sadness in his eyes that he has never seen in anyone.

The girl he met in January hadn't looked like she'd ever known such sorrow.

She freezes. He's made her. There's no way he could read her that well if he didn't know what she was like before, if he hadn't known her back then when she was carefree and knew what it was like to laugh and have fun. Back when she was a wild child at Stanford with a big, wide future ahead of her.

Finally she forces out the words, "Cute trick," unwilling to tell him what really happened back then.

* * *

><p>The more time he spends with her that day, the more enamoured he feels. She's astounding. The way she commands a room of officers, the way she owns an interrogation and her suspect. She's death in heels. Beauty in a bulletproof vest. That little roll of her eyes every time he disobeys one of her orders, it's the most adorable thing he's seen apart from his daughter.<p>

She may be caustic and antagonistic towards him, but that just makes him want her more. And he knows that if he's ever going to get her, he can't say anything about Katherine Harlow.

The next day, he finds her appearance at Jonathan Tisdale's office makes him a stuttering mess. She surprises him, inviting him up with her, working with him again when he was practically kicked out of the precinct by her captain after his mother and daughter bailed him out because she arrested him. She kind of seems like a different person, because he finds that all of the hostility she was directing towards him was gone though he has no idea why.

It's not even a conscious thing. Ever since his insistence that Kyle Cabot was innocent, she has found him less…annoying. Maybe it's because he seems just as determined as she is to bring the right people to justice, or maybe it's just that she's finally gotten used to him bugging her. Maybe, the idealistic side of her is thinking that he's not as bad as he seems, that that playboy image is just as image and he's still that sweet man she met ten years ago.

Even so, when he asks her out, she knows she can't say yes.

And when she tells him that he has no idea, she thinks in her head an extension of that sentence.

"_You have no idea who I am."_

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I know a lot of you are keen for me to continue through season 1. I think I've thought of a way I'd like to do that for at least a few episodes, though I really don't want to stay massively close to the episodes, so please do tell me whether you thought this chapter was too close/not close enough to Flowers for your Grave. If you would also like to see a chapter for every episode of season 1 (or even beyond) tell me that too. The next few chapters will probably be quite delayed, as I'll need to rewatch the episodes before and whilst writing each chapter to avoid making mistakes and also because I'm also about to start uploading another story, so if you don't want to miss updates and you haven't already done it, I would recommend that you follow this story. **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Some of you may have already seen that I posted the little oneshot story linked to this one, fleshing out what went on when Kate disappeared. If you haven't, what are you waiting for? Joking aside, feel free to read or if you don't want to, that's totally fine too. Those of you who have read it and have let me know what you thought, thank you. I'm so glad to see so many of you enjoyed it. Thank you also from the bottom of my heart for your continued support for this story. **

* * *

><p>It's been a week and he still can't tell. Some days he thinks he sees flashes and flares of recognition in her eyes. He thinks he hears a guarded tone when she asks him a question, something that makes him think she might already know his answer. It's there when he quizzes her, falling back time and time again on the 'research' excuse. He wonders if it's just reluctance that makes her hesitate, the fact that she doesn't want her entire life story painted as fiction in his book, or that she doesn't want to shoot herself in the foot and reveal too much. Other days he tells himself he's being ridiculous; she just doesn't appreciate him tagging along for the ride on all of her cases.<p>

He can write down all the things he knows about her and the few facts fit onto one sheet of paper. She's not married, nor has she ever been. She doesn't have any kids. Or siblings. Just a bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins she hardly ever sees. She hasn't denied that she never intended to be a cop, but she hasn't told him what career she dreamed of ending up in either.

It's got to the point now that he thinks he wouldn't even care if he never found out whether Detective Beckett is the same woman as Katherine Harlow, so long as he got to know more about the woman who's inspired what he's sure is going to be his best character and novel yet.

He actually knows he should be writing about Nikki instead of constantly ruminating on his new muse, but she's driving him crazy. Ever since his first spark of inspiration, the night after the Alison Tisdale case when he churned out two whole chapters without even stopping, he's not managed to write a word. It's not Nikki captivating him anymore. It's that need to know more. After all, how can he write Nikki when he still doesn't really know Detective Kate Beckett?

* * *

><p>When she rings and tells him she's got a case, that he should meet her at Central Park he sees it as an opportunity to find some more notes for his page. By the end of the case though, when they've tricked Brandon into confessing, there are only two, messy new lines scribbled onto it when he was in the men's room – one of which is crossed through when she tells him that her line to the prep students was just that: a line, leaving him with the fact that she went to public school. After a bit more digging, she finally confesses that she was a student at Stuyvesant High School, but it's like pulling out someone's fingernails getting information out of her.<p>

His list of observations gets a couple more bullets though, and he hopes that it'll be easier to refocus on Nikki Heat for a day or too. Beckett's determined, got a slight guilt complex and she's not easily flustered, he notes, as proved by Brandon's attempts at getting a rise from her during his interrogation – God, he could have hit that kid. He wasn't as disrespectful as that when Beckett pulled him in during the Tisdale case, was he? He has a sinking feel he was.

As she sits at her desk, finishing up a few little things – things he has no clue about because every time he tries to get a closer look, she kicks his shin just like when she pinched his ear as he snooped on her phone call – he says, "So about this poker game you want in on?"

"Yeah?"

The end of her pen is trapped between her teeth as she looks up from the files on her desk and cocks an eyebrow at him.

"You have to _swear _that you won't give anything to Patterson or Cannell about our little partnership here?"

He gestures between the two of them and a flash of indignation runs through her. The word partnership implies that they're both willing participants, but in her eyes he's been foisted on her. All those little euphemisms and comments he's made, that line about lonely single mothers; she's glad that she never became one of those women that New Year's Eve. She'll concede that he's not quite so much of a jackass anymore, but he's still not an actual cop.

"_If he thinks this is anything but temporary, he's deluded_."

"Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm actually going to be pretty busy for a week or two-" she tries, now regretting her comment about joining his poker game, since he was just as easy to fool as the group of seniors they spoke with right after they found Donny Kendall's body. She needs to remember to be more careful with what she says to avoid these awkward situations as much as the truth she's still hiding.

"-Not to worry, Detective Beckett, the poker train isn't rolling into town until the 17th."

She nods, thinking she can always blow him off later.

He checks the time on his watch, wishing he could stay longer – ask her about where she went to college, since he now knows where she went to high school – but he needs to get back if he and Alexis are going to get to her school before the group leave for DC.

He stands, getting a near perfect view down the front of her green blouse as he pushes his arms into his jacket. "Until Tuesday, Detective."

Her murmur back is distracted, her attention refocused on her paperwork as she says, "See you, Castle."

Alexis is asleep on the bus, her head resting against his shoulder while he tries to convince himself that it's not a good idea to bribe his way into getting his hands on Beckett's school records. She would definitely shoot him if she found out he'd done that. He just wishes she would be more open with him – he's meant to be writing a character based on her, for God's sake.

* * *

><p>Her eyes actually feel painful, tiredness and strain taking their toll after hours of staring at the murder board after another fitful night's sleep. When she removes her makeup before sinking into the bath, the deep circles that seem to constantly mark the skin around her eyes are still there.<p>

She won't admit it, but he's managed to worm him way under her skin again. Five minutes with him in a bookstore was enough ten years ago to have her flirting with him over a few too many vodka and cokes. In some ways it's like he never left her. She's had his words every day. She'd be lying if she said she didn't hear them in his voice every time she reads his books, if she said she hadn't pictured him reading them to her at least once.

A part of her thinks she should just tell him all about that night in the bar, that it was her. But it's a small part of her, and the rest of her knows that to do so would just be more hassle than it's worth. He probably wouldn't even care about that little white lie she told him, the fact that she never corrected any of his assumptions about her. All he'd want to know about would be her wild child ways, and those are probably the only years she doesn't want to think about.

Shaking her head, she scoots forward in the bathtub and lies back until she's completely submerged in water. She needs to stop this, stop letting herself get caught up with thinking that he's looking for anything more than a one night stand. This whole writing-a-character-based-on-you thing is just one more ploy of his, another desperate attempt to get into her pants – not that she's ever going to let that happen.

When the water starts to get cold, she pulls the plug on the bath, sending the water whirling down the drain as she starts to towel herself dry before padding into her bedroom. His book, _Death of Prom Queen, _catches her eye like it has every night since she arrested him. Ever since then she's not been able to pick the book back up. Instead of continuing to read it, she's left it sitting on her bedside table. Her fingers itch with habit once she's switched off the overhead light, leaving only the bedside light on.

Tearing her gaze from the book, she flicks off the remaining light and turns onto her side, determined to ignore this effect that Richard Castle is having on her once again. While she waits for sleep to take her, she can feel the book's presence almost like he's in the room with her. It's tantalising, she knows, to just turn the light back on, run her fingers over the cover of one of the books that brought her so much comfort during the months and years after her mother's cruel murder. But touching the front cover will never be enough.

She groans with frustration, tightening her grip on the sheets covering her, squeezing her eyes tight shut at the thought of lying awake for hours for another night. She wishes that for at least one night she could sleep properly, that she could get over this ridiculous attraction she has for him. More than anything, she wishes that she'd never had to arrest him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I've decided not to do every single episode of season one simply because I probably wouldn't have enough time to write a chapter for every single one now that the end of my term is about a month away and I need to start focusing on assignments as well. Instead, I'll probably write chapters like this, that go across multiple episodes and have added or missing scenes. I hope this format is okay with you guys. Apologies for the less than exciting chapter. The next one should be a lot more interesting, Scout's honour. I'd still really appreciate your thoughts though, so leave a review if you've got time. Thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Apologies again for the wait for this chapter. I've changed my mind a lot concerning the content of this chapter. I even had something written then decided to use that for later in the story. Anyways, excuses aside, I hope you like this chapter. **

* * *

><p>He checks over his shoulder to be sure Javier Esposito has left before he flips open Johanna Beckett's case file. His eyes had caught for a moment on the photograph of her mother attached to the front, searching for Kate. Her eyes, it seems, are exact copies of her mother's. They both have the same startling flash of golden amber ringed around the iris and the sea of deep, forest green and hazelnut outside that, the colours he felt like he was drowning in when she turned those sorrowful eyes on him and told him her mother's story, the story of why she became a cop.<p>

_By the way, it was my mother._

He can still see the haunted look in her eyes; hear the hesitance in her voice as she divulged her carefully guarded secret.

_We were supposed to go to dinner together – my mom, my dad and I, and she was gonna meet us at the restaurant, but she never showed. Two hours later, we went home and there was a detective waiting for us. Detective Raglan. They had found her body. She had been stabbed._

Looking at the photos of the crime scene, stabbed doesn't half cover it, he thinks. It wasn't as if it was just the one knife wound; they were all over her body.

_She still had her money and purse and jewellery. And it wasn't a sexual assault either. They attributed it to gang violence. A random wayward event. So, just like in Melanie's case, they couldn't think outside of the box so they tried to package it up nicely. And the killer was never caught._

He understands now why she's so closed off.

_This is for the life that I saved. And…this is for the life that I lost._

_So I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now, Castle._

The thought that she's read this file, seen these pictures, that kind of worries him. Normally, the relatives of a victim would never see that. He wonders what it did to her, before realising that the photos and the official reports probably only made her more determined to solve her mother's case.

The photo given to the police for the case file has Johanna Beckett smiling. Even though he hasn't seen a proper smile from her daughter, knows that she doesn't smile willingly at him, he can tell she inherited her mother's mouth too. It would be nice, he thinks, to see her smile enough to get her mother's smile lines.

After sitting down at the desk in the archive, he starts reading. Inside the file, he reads all the reports, the interviews, drawing short when he comes across the interview conducted with Kate. There, attached by paperclip to the piece of paper, is the face of Katherine Harlow.

All the breath rushes out of him in an instant, loud where it rattles in the back of his throat.

It's her, without a doubt. The long, lustrous curls of golden hair he dreamt about for so many nights hang around her youthful face. But it's those eyes he's become so familiar with that he stares at. In the picture, they still hold all of their light and life, just like they did when he first met her.

Kate Beckett is the woman he met at his booksigning, the woman he ran into on New Year's Eve.

But this realisation brings a whole new problem. Now that he knows, what does he do? Should he tell her he knows it's her? There has to be a reason why she hasn't told him. Right?

He's still questioning what to do when he puts the file back in the box Esposito drew it from and leaves the precinct. He groans at his own indecisiveness while he waits for a cab he can flag down to drive by, trying desperately to tamp down the urge to go to her apartment – not that he even knows exactly where she lives, just the general area. He would spend hours going door to door, ringing every buzzer if he had to though.

By the time he's home, he's almost settled with the idea of keeping silent, but the drive to know why she never told him that they'd met before – despite all of his ribbing questions about whether she'd ever attended one of his signings (since he knows she's obviously such a big fan of his) – burns within him.

It's a rare occasion where he needs his mother's advice. It's lucky for him that on this evening, she's not out with a gentleman caller, but is instead enjoying a large glass of wine at his kitchen counter while his daughter works on her homework.

"You're back late," she comments as he shuts the door and approaches them. "Katherine corral you into doing your share of the paperwork?"

He chuckles, knowing that that's the response she expects from him. "Something like that," he indulges, allowing a moment to pass before he asks, "If you knew something about someone but they didn't know you knew, would you talk to them about it?"

His mother scrutinises him as she answers, "That's very vague, Richard. What kind of information are we talking about here?"

"Say you'd, I don't know, knew that this person had lied about something they told you? Or they'd neglected to tell you at all?" He shrugs, tries to be cavalier with the way he drops the question, as if it's an irrelevant example, but he can't meet his mother's eyes since he's well aware that she knows his mind well enough to guess that he could only be talking about Kate Beckett.

It's Alexis who answers first, not even looking up from her homework until she's finished the equation she's currently working on. "Lies never get you anywhere, Dad."

He nods, but he can't help thinking that lies or rather the un-acknowledgement of them are sometimes necessary. He knows without a doubt that confronting Kate Beckett would only result in her kicking him out of the precinct and never speaking to him again. And that was if he was lucky. Most likely, she'd threaten first to castrate him, feed him to the police dogs, remind him of that gun that was constantly strapped to her side and he'd walk away cowering, too afraid to return.

He sighs again, throwing himself onto the couch.

_What to do?_

* * *

><p>She's only just got off the phone with her Dad, smiling slightly because he was filled with such good spirits at another month of great AA meetings and sobriety. Those early years after her mother's death were filled with so many failed attempts, promises broken after just a few days when he would somehow manage to sneak a bottle or two past her. The last five years have been his longest run without a drink. She's so proud.<p>

As she stirs her sauce and pasta together, she hopes she hasn't made a big mistake telling him about her mom. The last thing she wants is for her own personal tragedy to be splashed around the media. She doesn't even think about whether telling him about her mom will be the crucial piece of the puzzle for him, whether he'll ask her outright if she was the girl he quite nearly slept with ten years ago. All she cares about is what he's going to do with the knowledge of her mother's murder.

* * *

><p>The quiet rush of the precinct, the low level of chatter, the occasional ring of a telephone, the grind of the elevator doors opening on the homicide floor every so often, the muffled noises of traffic outside – none of it does much to distract her from her worries while she waits for him to come in for the morning. Every time she hears the elevator doors slide open accompanied by the ding of the contraption stopping on their floor has her looking up so quickly she's beginning to develop a crick in the neck.<p>

Finally though when she looks up she sees him stepping off with what has become the usual two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Hers is placed beside her elbow on her desk, she sees it out of the corner of her eyes as she stares resolutely at her paperwork, unable to meet his eyes because she can't help fearing seeing pity there.

"So, do we have a case?" he asks, folding his coat over the back over the chair that now sits permanently beside her desk.

Relief floods through her at that because it's normal. There's nothing in his voice, no emotion other than slight interest and it means she can glance up and tell him with a completely straight face, "You know we don't _always _have a case, right, Castle?"

He shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee before replying, "It's much more fun when we do." He watches as her eyes roll at that and thinks he's made the right decision, that it'll be better to wait her out, to get her to tell him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, any thoughts? Do let me know. I really appreciate those of you who do review and tell me what you think. So far, this story has been uncharted ground for me – I've never really done much AU stuff, and when I started the story, I had no idea what I was going to do with it once it hit canon territory. So your feedback and opinions are that much more important. Also, if there are mistakes of any kind that you may spot, just let me know though fingers crossed there aren't any. **


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: So this was kind of more what I planned for the last chapter, at least setting-wise. Things are starting to begin to move along now, obviously.**

* * *

><p>It had been a long day, she knew she should be heading home but the boys were determined to go out for a few drinks since they haven't done that for weeks, and once Lanie was invited along it became almost impossible for her to refuse.<p>

"Come on, Beckett," Ryan had pleaded. "Just one drink with us."

"Girl, you need to get out more."

"Yeah, Chica," Espo had added. "One beer and then we won't argue if you leave. Writer Boy's even coming-"

She rolled her eyes even as Lanie jumped back on the bandwagon and told her that if Castle was going it was all the more reason for her to go, so she could jump his bones.

So that's how she finds herself sat in one of New York City's better bars, perching on a stool while she waits with Richard Castle to take the next round of drinks back to the booth their group has commandeered.

"So that's one scotch, one Magners cider, a white wine spritzer, a Budweiser and a vodka and Coke," the barman announces, placing the collection of bottles and glasses down on top of the bar once he's finished gathering and mixing everything.

"Vodka and coke," Castle says while she hands over everyone's money. "It's been a long time since I've been with someone who drank that particular drink – probably almost ten years exactly."

She swallows dryly, fighting to keep her eyes from flicking to look at him. She knows if she'd taken a mouthful of her vodka and coke, it would have been spat back out on the bartop.

_Relax, he could be talking about anybody. If he knew, he'd have said something. This is Richard Castle – the guy probably couldn't keep a secret even if someone paid him._

Instead of rising to his bait, she calmly picks up the few glasses she can carry – hers and Lanie's, and asks, "What's so wrong with vodka and Coke?" He doesn't need to know that were she not scheduled to work the next day, she'd probably be doing shots with Lanie rather than keeping a cool head with diluted vodka, a drink that now only gives her a slight buzz rather than makes her outrageously tipsy as it did when she first drank it with him.

"Nothing," he assures her. "I just pictured you-"

"-What? Throwing back tequila shots like they're juice?" She meets his eyes and watches as they narrow. "I only do that on my nights off."

"Yeah, right." Somehow the insinuation in his eyes that even she wouldn't be able to quite manage that makes her want to spin on her heel and return to the bar to order a round of tequila along with salt and limes.

Quickening her pace, she settles for going back to their booth and throwing herself into a conversation with Lanie that he can't interrupt. She can feel his eyes on her though, watching the careful way she sips the fizzy liquid, pursing her lips as it bubbles her on her tongue. The way she laughs at Lanie's story about actually thinking one of the bodies in the morgue had moved is slightly maniacal, entirely too forced. It doesn't take a genius to see it. But Lanie is far too attuned to her mannerisms, knows her too well, to not notice, and before she's really aware of what's happening, her best friend has her up and out of her seat, towing her into the bathroom by a vice-like grip around her elbow.

"Okay, spill," Lanie orders the second the door closes.

The picture of innocence, Kate widens of eyes, a slight smile curling the corners of her mouth. "What?"

Lanie fixes her with a look. "Don't you give me that, Kate Beckett. Something's up with you, so tell me what it is."

She shrugs and maintains an air of confusion until Lanie crosses her arms and leans back against the door, blocking her exit. Then it all comes blurting out. She tells her how she met Castle all those years ago and all her worries, her indecisions over what to do.

"-Does he know?" Lanie interrupts when she's nearing the end of her story.

Kate throws up her hands. "Who knows! He looks at me sometimes and I swear- I mean just now he says it's been ten years since he drank with someone who ordered vodka and coke. Why would he say that if he didn't know?"

"But he hasn't asked outright?"

Kate shakes her head.

Lanie sounds careful as she says, "Is there a reason you haven't just told him that you've met before?" A loaded silence settles between them. _Why hasn't she said anything?_ "You don't have feelings for him do you?"

* * *

><p>He chuckles absentmindedly at what Javi said, knowing he's expecting to laugh only because beside him Ryan is in hysterics. Instead of paying attention to the conversation they seem to think he's involved in, he stares at the long-gone path Kate and Lanie had woven between people to get to the Ladies' room, wondering when she'll be coming back.<p>

He's thinking back to their little conversation at the bar. He'd tried chatting to her while the bartender pulled Ryan's pint of cider and popped the top off of Javi's beer before pouring out his scotch and mixing Kate's vodka and Coke and Lanie's spritzer, but she'd seemed disinterested. If he was honest, she'd been particularly reclusive ever since she told him about her mother's case.

It's been weeks since then. Weeks since he read the file Esposito gave him on the down low. Weeks since he saw that picture, _her _picture. And she still hasn't said anything. He fears she never will. Especially if she doesn't come back from the ladies' room soon. Perhaps that risky comment was just that: _too_ risky.

He's shocked into motion when someone taps his shoulder. As soon as his head whips around, he's suddenly surrounded, all-encompassed, by the most alluring scent he's ever had the pleasure to smell.

"So, what do you say, Castle? Think you can keep up with me?" she asks, holding out an over-spilling shot-glass of tequila to him.

He's oblivious to Lanie's wide smirk, the way Javi and Ryan have stopped laughing and are staring at Beckett in shock. He can't seem to stop questioning how she even managed to sneak up on him when he was literally staring at the door the entire time she was in the bathroom. His brain doesn't want to work. He knows that the question has gone unanswered too long, that it's gotten awkward and she's shuffling her feet a little as though she doesn't quite know what to do; but he's literally tongue-tied. When did his tongue become so big? If he wasn't quite so focused on Katherine Beckett, the way she's shaken her hair out more, got it framing her face rather than flicking away from her neck at the very tips; he'd probably be seriously considering the possibility that he was suffering an allergic reaction.

Instead of speaking, he raises his hand – the movement far smoother than he thought he was capable of, especially in his delirious haze – and takes hold of one of the glasses, toasting her before knocking it back and swallowing the liquid, enjoying the way it sears and burns for a moment in the back of his throat.

"Guess that's a yes then," she mutters before taking her own shot. "Come on." Her hands pull him out of the booth, fingers gripping his bicep and seeming to tighten almost reflexively while he wonders where exactly she's dragging him until she pushes him onto a stool at the bar and signals for two more shots from the barman.

"Wait, wait, if we're going to do this, then we've got to do it right," he tells her, holding up his hands before turning his attention to the barman and calling, "Limes and salt too, please."

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><p>How has she never noticed how muscled his arms are? She can't help the teasing, testing squeeze of her fingers as she leads him to the bar. The dress shirts, blazers and thick wool coat he's been wearing all winter have been too concealing clearly.<p>

She watches from the corner of her eye as he licks the skin on his thenar space before tilting the salt shaker over and tapping it on the end a few times, sending a sprinkle of salt onto the back of his hand. As soon as he's done, he slides it down the few inches of distance of barspace between them. By the time she's sprinkled her own salt, he's already licked his off and downed his shot and is picking up his lime.

He looks expectantly at her when he's done. "Keep up, Beckett. I thought you drank tequila like juice."

She squares her jaw and narrows her eyes, maintaining eye contact with him as she licks the salt off her hand doing it as slowly and seductively as she can manage, before tilting her shot glass the barest amount, the sharp flick of her wrist sending the pale amber liquid down her throat. It bursts on her tongue, a sudden influx of spice and pepper that refuses to diffuse in the back of her throat. Her tastebuds tingle, finding a slight, tantalising taste of caramel. The corner of her lips curl as she sees him gaping at her. What possesses her to offer him her wedge of lime though and open her mouth wide, she doesn't know. By the time her brain catches up with her body, it's too late – he's taken the piece of fruit from her and is pinching the two ends together to squeeze the citrus juice out.

The juice drops mostly into her mouth, eliciting a tiny moan of pleasure from her, though the sound was obviously audible to his ears. His fingers jerk the tiniest of amounts, but the damage is done and a trickle of juice runs down her chin. Before she can dart out for it with her tongue, or swipe the liquid away with the back of her hand, he's leaning forwards and catching it for her. With his tongue.

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><p>He sees her eyes darken, as affected by him as he is by her. God, the way she licked her hand – she had to know what kind of pictures sprang up in his mind right? How much better this little contest they had would be if it were back at his loft or her apartment, where there was no-one there to disturb them.<p>

Before he can suffer a reality check, he shifts and places his lips over hers.

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><p><strong>AN: Yeah, I know, horrid place to end. It will get continued in the next chapter so not to worry, I just want a little more time to really think through my plan for what happens next, but I thought I'd give you guys something as it's been a few weeks since I last updated this story. Thank you everyone who has reviewed and/or added this story to their alerts and favourites.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank yous go to phnxgrl, htbuzz, hfce, TORONTOSUN, shellee3, zombiede, rckbfan90, alwayscastle2, saifos and the anonymous people for reviewing! I'm glad so many of you guys are enjoying this story. After my cliffhanger ending, I already had some of this chapter written and wanted to give it to you a bit earlier. I hope you like it.**

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><p>His kiss sears. There's no way to describe it. It's fierier than the tequila she can taste lingering on him. It's passionate. More passionate than it has any right to be. Scorching heat consumes her and she can't even tell where it's coming from. Is it him, the way he's suddenly all around her, in her space? Or is it her and that coil of arousal in her core? There's no way to know. She can't even think. Not when his unbelievably soft lips are caressing hers, tongue teasing her until her mouth falls open. All she can do is return the pressure his mouth is putting on hers.<p>

Suddenly one of his hands is at her back, canting her into him. Her nostrils fill with the scent of his cologne and impossibly it's the same one as that night ten years ago. It's cloying, filling her senses and making her feel claustrophobic because she can finally feel the tight grip his fingers are maintaining on her waist.

Breaking apart from him, she gasps out, "This was a mistake."

She's gone in an instant, just like that night the last time their lips met. But this time he calls after her, follows her out into the cold night and catches her leaning breathlessly against the wall, breathing so quickly she could be mistaken for having a panic attack. Every inhale and exhale catches in her throat, an audible wheeze reaching his ears.

"Kate," he says, making her flinch. But she doesn't answer, just turns her head further away from him. He tries again, softer this time, her name just a murmur on his lips.

The way she moves, so slowly – so obviously reluctant to meet his eyes – it kills him a little bit inside.

Her voice comes out in a rasp before she clears her throat and tries again. "I should-I should go. Sorry." It still comes out lowly, but at least she feels dignified enough to turn and walk away, all too aware of his eyes boring into the back of her head as he stares after her.

She doesn't break. Not until she gets back to her dark apartment and shuts the door behind her. Then she's leaning her forehead against the door and cursing herself for actually listening to Lanie's advice.

"_You don't have feelings for him, do you?"_

A shaky laugh wobbles out of her. That's such a stupid question, isn't it? Feelings for him? Sure, she has a lot of feelings for Richard Castle. Annoyance. Impatience. Frustration. Anger. But she also admires him. She respects him – sometimes anyway. She appreciates him. She cares about him, though she'll admit it's still funny when he tries ducking under the police tape and gets a mouthful of plastic because he's still talking a mile a minute.

"_Feelings? For Castle?!"_

"_Don't you give me that look, Kate. I see the way you two interact and you can deny it all you want, but there's definitely something there."_

"_What are you saying?"_

"_I'm saying that maybe you should take a chance with him."_

"Cause that worked out," she thinks bitterly to herself, spinning so her back rests on the door. Seconds after her head connects with the wood, a knock on the door vibrates through her.

_No… He wouldn't-_

"Beckett!" he yells, bashing against the door with the side of his hand – each impact jarring her skull.

She stays silent, hoping that he'll go away thinking she's not in.

"I know you're in there. Open the door dammit."

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><p>That elusive taste of vanilla and whatever else it is – something that he can't put his finger on – that Detective Beckett tastes of coats his lips. He's dazed as he presses his fingers to his mouth, staring after her, shocked that once again she's run away from him. It's strange. She doesn't seem like the kind of person who would run from anything, and yet there he is watching her retreating figure.<p>

Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, Rick wanders back into the bar with the idea that he can have one more drink – something strong – before heading home. He's barely in through the door when Lanie pulls him aside.

"Castle? Where's Kate? I thought you two were heading home together."

"She…" He trails off. What's he supposed to say?

Sighing, Lanie says, "She left, didn't she?" She groans. "That woman, God, I swear she just wants to stay miserable, be lonely. She's her own worst enemy." He stands in silence, listening to Lanie talking to herself. And the she says his name. "Castle, what I'm about to do, it's for her benefit, okay?"

He nods slowly and then she sticks her hand into his jacket pocket, comes out with his notepad – the one he writes down everything about Kate in. Luckily for him Lanie doesn't seem bothered in perusing it's pages; she just flips through to a blank page before tearing it out.

"You got a pen?"

His fingers fumble to pull it out, almost dropping it before handing it to her.

While she writes, using her hand as the flat surface she needs to lean on, she asks, "How drunk are you?"

"You mean the pen? I'm fine – I've only had a scotch and a few tequila shots. I can take much more than that." No, it's not the alcohol coursing through his system that's making him so clumsy. It's her. It's always her.

She nods, accepting his answer. But he can't even focus on that. She has to force his fingers closed around the piece of paper she was writing on and when he looks blankly at her explain, "It's her address – Kate's address."

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><p>"Beckett, let me in. Trust me; I have no qualms about staying out here all night and waking up the neighbours."<p>

He still looks surprised though when the door opens and she stands facing him, shoulders drawn tense and ready for a fight. She's just about to demand, "What, Castle?" when he speaks.

"You left."

Just two words, but they're still full of accusation.

"You kissed me," she counters.

"Yeah, I guess I did, but you kissed me first, Kate."

"What?" she gasps. She can't breathe and they're still stood in her doorway. If any of her neighbours are awake, they're now privy to her secrets and lies too.

"You heard me. You. Kissed. Me. First. Kate." Each word is punctuated with a step forwards, a stride that pushes her backwards into her apartment. He pauses. "Or should I call you Katherine Harlow."

"You know?" It doesn't even need to be a question. It's obvious he knows. But she's reeling, physically backpedalling to get away from him. She can't even get her brain kicked into gear. She always thought that when it came out, if it ever came out, that she'd be asking him how he found out; but she doesn't even have the presence of mind for that. She's too distracted by the intense look he's fixed on her. She knows what he's going to do before he does it, can see the action in his determined eyes.

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><p>Her hands land on the table behind her. She's got nowhere left to run to now. He knows he shouldn't. He knows it's wrong, that he'll be stepping over the line. But he can't resist. That smell, it's stronger here – more concentrated in her apartment. He finally knows what it is – cherries. It's so appealing – even more so than her kiss-swollen lips. If her wary gaze is anything to go by, she knows exactly where his eyes are focusing. But she doesn't protest when his hands land on top of hers. Or when he leans in towards her and pushes one of his legs in between hers. Not even when he brushes his lips over hers, hesitantly at first before his lust becomes insatiable.<p>

"Wait, wait!" she gasps out against his demanding lips, leaning backwards over her own table so she can see him when she asks, "don't you hate me?"

"Why would I hate you?" he murmurs, his body following hers the more she tilts away from him. It's like she has some kind of magnetic pull over him. He just can't resist her.

"Because I lied, about my age, about who I was. And I kept it from you-"

"-Don't care," he mutters before kissing her again, silencing whatever else she was going to say.

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><p><strong>AN: Let me know what you guys think. There's a possibility that this could go M rated in the next few chapters, so also please tell me whether you would be opposed to that. Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Apologies for the late update this time around. Internet difficulties conspired against me and I also had a hard to decision to make with this chapter. While most of you said you were completely fine with me bumping the rating of this story up to M, others in your number said they would rather I kept this rated to T. With that in mind, I decided that I would keep this chapter and those that will follow as a T, but post the M rated version of this chapter (and any others that may follow – I haven't thought that far ahead yet) as separate stories. That way, this story stays T rated, but those of you who wanted to read the M rated stuff still can. The story is called 'Notches on the Bedpost' Because of this, obviously I had two chapters to write – in addition to my other stories – so it took me a little longer. Hopefully, you guys are okay with this decision and still enjoy this chapter. **

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><p>His lips are barely on hers for more than a second before they're moving down to her neck, lathing over where her pulse pounds against her skin. Her traitorous body works against her, hands rising to lock around his neck and pin him in place against her because <em>damn him<em> the way he's working his mouth over her skin feels _good_. Not just in a you're-a-pretty-good-kisser way but in a holy-shit-take-me-now way. How he knows _exactly _where her sensitive spot is – the one that literally makes her weak in the knees and has her gripping tightly to his biceps – would be a pressing issue if her mind wasn't clouded with lust.

It takes him mere seconds to take off her coat and unbutton her shirt and then his hands are on her, everywhere all at once. Her skin erupts in a trail of gooseflesh everywhere his calloused fingers touch her skin and she trembles under his ministrations, warmth pooling in her middle when his lips find her clavicle.

She's not even moved, her muscles seemingly locked in place – the hold she has on his head probably painful now – and yet he's still kissing her, unperturbed by her lack of reciprocation. Hell, she's actually embarrassed by the fact that he's managed to take off her shirt and is fingering the clasp of her bra, _teasing _her and she hasn't made a single move towards equalling their level of dress. He's already had to remove his own coat.

"Where's the bedroom?" he mumbles against her skin, startling her into movement finally. When she spins, his hands land somewhere near her waist and his lips press against her neck, the tip of his nose disturbing her hair as he deliberately inhales the aroma of cherries. Her breath catches and she gasps audibly. She feels him grinning in response, his smug smile etching into her back when he ducks and presses a kiss between her shoulder blades. She gets the last laugh though. Reaching a hand back and palming him through his pants earns her a strangled noise before she releases him and leads the way into her dark bedroom, saucily swaying her hips because she knows he's watching.

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><p>Only the moonlight illuminates her naked form. It shines off of the thin film of sweat that coats her body, showing her chest rapidly rising and falling while she comes down from her euphoric high. God, it's beautiful, he thinks. <em>She's <em>beautiful.

"That was-" he breaks off, tries desperately to think of a word that appropriately describes how _earth-shattering _that experience was before only lamely coming up with, "wow!" He doesn't notice her flinch when he splays one of his palms across her stomach or the way her eyes flick to him before filling with regret.

She jerks upright and grabs for the bedsheet, covering her modesty from him.

"Kate?" he asks, propping himself on his elbow, looking at her with concern.

The use of her first name makes her cringe and want to bolt for the door but she tames the reaction and instead forces herself to look at him. "This was a mistake. Y-you should go, Castle." After that she stands and walks into her bathroom, desperately trying not to show how much her legs shake, and locks the door behind her, running a shower. He can hear the water and for a minute he stays there lying on her bed and staring, expecting the door to open again and for her to walk out and say she was joking because how could something so perfect, so _right_ have been a mistake. When it's clear she's not coming out, he stands and shuffles about her bedroom, numbly collecting his clothes.

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><p>Hesitance pervades as she eases the door open and then breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of her empty bedroom. He's gone, thankfully. Not that she'd expected him to stick around, not after he'd made his conquest.<p>

She tiptoes barefoot, clad only in the towel she'd wrapped around her body after showering, through her dark apartment to make sure her front door is deadbolted. On the way back to her bedroom, she doesn't bother turning lights on, but at the sight of her messy bed she halts. It's a shameful reminder of what she's just left happen. Instead she grabs a blanket so she can sleep on the couch for the night. She wants a peaceful night's sleep, but the ghost of his touch refuses to leave her. She can still feel his fingers digging into the skin of her hips, remembers the scrape of his stubble on the insides of her thighs. The memory of him burns on her skin and in her memory.

When she stumbles into work the next morning, with tired and bloodshot eyes hidden beneath layer upon layer of makeup, she just wants the day to be over. She's hoping for a chance to work through the pile up of paperwork on her desk rather than an open case. She doesn't have the energy to think hard enough to solve a case and it kills her a little bit inside that she's going to be failing at her job today.

"Beckett." It's curt and it jolts her in her chair.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" she hisses, launching her body out of her chair and hussling him straight into the breakroom. "Out!" It's an order, a command that gets the two junior detectives straight into the bullpen even though she technically has no authority over them. As she shuts the blinds, she sees both Esposito and Ryan peering over from their desks, blatantly spying. The sigh stokes her fire, feeds and fuels her ire. "You shouldn't be here."

"I came to work," he argues, nettled by her harsh and cold tone. "I need to observe you, remember? For my book?"

"No, you need to leave. I don't want you here."

"Why? Because we slept together? Because you lied to me? Why, Beckett?"

Her steel eyes bore through him as she grits her teeth, and then yells, "Shut up, Castle!"

They're toe to toe and though she's wearing a pair of her stiletto-heeled boots, he's still an inch or two taller than her. Her eyes blaze no less though as she glares up at him, the both of them locked in some kind of bubble of anger.

Suddenly, though, the door is open and Esposito is looking in, eyes moving between them. "There a problem here?"

"No," Beckett replies tightly before squeezing past. From her desk she watches Castle join Espo at Ryan's desk, the three of them gossiping like mother hens. Her heart sinks as she watches Esposito bump fists with him. The idea that he's told Ryan and Espo is unbearable, even more so than knowing that she has just become another notch on his bedpost.

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><p><strong>AN: Let me know what you thought!**

**Also, I am so sorry I have been unable to reply to your reviews from the last chapter. As I briefly said earlier, I've had no internet since Monday. What I'm using to upload this is a day pass I had to buy and it's about to run out. I read every single one of your reviews though and I'm so grateful that so many of you take the time to tell me what you think. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. **


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Okay, our problem with internet has **_**finally **_**been sorted out so I shall reply to all of your individual reviews very soon. As a whole though, thank you to all of you who are reading this. I can't quite believe how many of you there are. **

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><p>"<em>This was a mistake. Y-you should go, Castle," she says, facing in his direction but not quite meeting his eyes. <em>

How could something so perfect have been a mistake? He still remembers how it felt to finally feel her skin against his, to be one with her. He'd never felt anything like it. There simply are no words.

Miserable, he stands and shuffles about her apartment, collecting his clothes and pulling them on – even his ruined shirt. He's cold as he waits outside on the street for a cab to pass by. Despite his jacket, which he holds closed over his chest, he can feel the tails of his shirt flapping in the breeze, chilling his skin and cruelly reminding him how heavenly it felt to be wrapped up in the warmth of Kate Beckett, how every hard line of his body seemed to perfectly align with her soft curves.

After finally catching a cab and taking the elevator up to his loft, he pauses outside his own front door with his key in the lock but his hand refusing to turn it. What if he shouldn't have left? What if she expected him to stay and to argue with her, to show her how wrong she was about them? He thought he was done with women who played games, toyed with his feelings, but he's just beginning to realise that his muse might be the most sadistic of them all – either that or he has some sort of masochism complex.

His feet drag and his shoes scuff the hardwood floors as he finally enters his home, heading straight for the alcohol cabinet. After a night like that, he needs a stiff drink. But even the scotch he nurses without lemon or lime refuses to quite hit the spot. He still feels too much like some kind of used, rent boy. And worst of all, he doesn't even understand why.

He goes to bed but he can't sleep and rather than stare at the ceiling all night, he rises and instead wanders into his office, duvet wrapped around him. Only the light from his laptop screen illuminates the room as he opens a new word document before pausing, unable to think of anything other than the pale column of her throat as she arched below him, head thrown back in ecstasy, or the way her tiny hand fit together with his. He groans, pushing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an effort to see something other than her.

Turning away, he presses a button on the remote lying on top of a stack of papers on his desk and switches on his projector, putting up the plot he's worked out for his first Nikki Heat novel. It's only been a few months since he felt inspired to write about a female cop, one more devoted to actually bringing people to justice than was usual, but already he's got ideas jotted all over the place for future books.

Ironically, when he looks up to see where he'd got to in the plot, he realises that Nikki has just brought Jameson Rook to her apartment and he wonders not for the first time if things happen for a reason or if coincidence is just a much bigger force in the universe than they credit it. Of course he would be writing the scene where Nikki and Rook first have sex right after he and Beckett have. Stymied, he wracks his brains for exactly how his two characters are going to make it from Rook simply checking Nikki was safe at home to Nikki taking his hand and leading him into her bedroom. It's a few minutes before he finds the words and starts writing.

_Rook didn't down this shot. Instead, he held out his hand to her. She looked down at the salt on his skin and the lime between his thumb and finger. Nikki didn't look up at him because she was afraid if she did she would change her mind instead of taking the leap. She bent towards his hand and darted her tongue out, quickly at first, but then, choosing to slow the movement down, she lingered there licking the salt off his skin. He offered her the shot and she fired it back and then, cradling his wrist in her fingers, she guided the lime wedge he was holding to her lips._

It isn't exactly what had happened, but it feels cathartic in some measure. Sighing to himself and pushing worries and fears from his mind, Rick writes and writes, nit-picking every word and sentence until it feels perfect.

Come morning he's bleary eyed and barely still awake, more exhausted than he was during the first few months after Alexis' birth.

His daughters chirpy, "Morning Dad," is almost lost on him as he shuffles out into the kitchen in search of a strong, black coffee.

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><p>He sits at the breakfast bar long after his mother and daughter have left for the day, wondering what he's supposed to do with himself. Writing is quite clearly out of the question when he can't concentrate on Nikki Heat without thinking of her inspiration. It soon becomes clear though, after making it through just one song – <em>You Give Love A Bad Name<em> – that nothing, not even _Guitar Hero_, will distract him.

If his family noticed his condition, they made no comment on it. He thinks absently that they probably just assumed he stayed up writing, which is true, he finally concedes to himself. Except it wasn't exactly fiction he was working on. Or it was based more upon truth and reality than anything else he's ever written.

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><p>Outside the building he sighs, asking himself if he's really going to do this. It feels like an age before he steels his nerves and jogs up the front steps, squeezing between two passing officers to get inside and still, when he reaches the correct floor, he hopes that maybe just this once she'll have called in sick or at the very least be out chasing a lead or visiting a crime scene. No such luck. She's there at her desk like she always is, staring intently at paperwork.<p>

She's so focused she doesn't hear him approach, doesn't look up until he speaks without even caring if he sounds brusque or angry because at least he's being honest. Unlike her.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" she hisses, launching her body out of her chair and hustling him straight into the breakroom. "Out!" It's an order, a command that gets the two junior detectives straight into the bullpen even though she technically has no authority over them. "You shouldn't be here."

"I came to work," he argues, nettled by her response to his presence. "I need to observe you, remember? For my book?"

"No, you need to leave. I don't want you here."

"Why? Because we slept together? Because you lied to me? Why, Beckett?" He knows that those things should bother him, should make him hate her but honestly he just wants to understand. He's always wanted to understand, right from the moment she arrested him and left him wondering why a woman like her would ever become a cop. Maybe he even wanted to understand her, to know her, when he first met her at his book signing, back when she apparently didn't have a clue who he was.

"Shut up, Castle!"

He doesn't even see the door open behind her or Esposito popping his head in; he's just glaring at her and hoping that he'll see some kind of explanation on her face if she won't say it with words.

Instead, the spell is broken as Espo asks, "There a problem here?" and gives Beckett an out. Castle stares after her for a moment, feeling Javi's questioning gaze upon him for a moment before he shifts and cracks a smile.

"Coffee?"

"Just had one," Esposito declines, letting go of the door handle and leaving it open behind him as he returns to his desk and Ryan.

He stays a moment, watching Beckett at her desk, shoulders shaking as she inhales and then holds her breath before releasing it. Shrugging, Rick wanders out after Esposito and leans up against Ryan's desk, wondering if they're going to press him on this obvious tension between him and their partner. Before they have a chance, he asks, "You guys hear about the new Porsche?"

"Seriously? The Cayman S? It's got over three hundred horsepower and goes zero to sixty in four seconds; of course I've heard about it."

"Right? It's going to be _awesome_!" Rick exclaims, holding out his fist for Espo to bump.

"Looks like you've sorted what you're spending your next advance on," Ryan says with a grin. "When the book's done, you'll have to make sure you don't forget about us lowly cops-"

"-Yeah, swing by and give us a ride in that metal dream or you know, I'm sure I can find some crime or other to pin on you, maybe a handful of unpaid parking tickets, get that nice new Porsche impounded."

He laughs, tells them, "Guys, the book's not even finished; I don't _have _the advance yet."

"If you guys are done gossiping, we have a murder," Beckett calls, startling them all by throwing a stack of post-it notes with the crime scene address on top onto Ryan's desk before striding to the lift and leaving.

"Geez, Beckett's cranky today," Esposito complains, standing and pulling his beaten, leather jacket from the back of his desk chair.

Ryan acknowledges the statement with a widening of his eyes as if to say, "No kidding," before turning to Castle and asking, "You know what's up with her?"

"Why would I know?" he replies, panicking slightly.

"She was short with you in the breakroom and you were the last one to see her last night," Esposito supplies, grabbing his car keys from his desktop.

"She left the bar before me," Castle blurts, eyes darting between Espo and Ryan. Beckett will kill him if she thinks her partners even suspect what happened between them. And that's if the guys don't do the deed first, protective older brothers that they are. "I'm as clueless as you guys about what's going on. PMS?" he suggests, hoping they'll find the idea plausible.

Espo shrugs. "Maybe Lanie'll know."

_Shit, shit, shit!_

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><p>Riding with the boys wasn't the same as riding with Beckett. Instead of easy chatter and the usual banter, the cruiser was filled with the two men bickering over which roads and routes to take to avoid traffic holdups.<p>

"I told you we'd run into traffic on Lexington," Esposito mutters as he parks the car and removes the key from the ignition, shooting a dark look at his partner.

Ignoring the pair of detectives, Rick opens the door and steps out onto the street, aware of uniforms watching him emerging from the back of the police car. If he hadn't already been arrested and placed in the back of a vehicle as a criminal, it would probably bother him. Instead, he walks head down in the footsteps of one of the uniforms, leaving Ryan and Esposito to get a rundown of the scene from the officer in charge. Before he knows it, he's standing at the fringe, able to hear every word Lanie and Beckett are exchanging.

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><p><strong>AN: I know some of you don't want me to drag out this part of the storyline, but in reality this is the kind of thing that would take some time to be sorted out. I swear as well, Beckett's reaction to sleeping with Castle will be fully explored in the next chapter. I just wanted to kind of show things from Castle's perspective and explain why he still shows up at the precinct the next day. Let me know what you think?**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I wouldn't normally do this but I have a bone to pick with an anonymous reviewer and this is the only way to address the issue since I can't reply to you personally. The people this is irrelevant to, feel free to skip what is sure to be a long author's note. Firstly, I would like to thank you for reviewing in the first place and giving me your opinions. I**_** am**_** grateful. I like to know what people like and dislike about my work because I genuinely want to be an author – constructive criticism is helpful. I appreciate the fact that as we are all individuals, we cannot like the same things. That being said, I don't appreciate being told what I should or shouldn't being doing with my story. If this were a book, you wouldn't even have that opportunity because by the time you read it, it would have already been published and therefore would be unchangeable (not that the author would change their storyline to meet one person's needs anyway). You said that this part of the storyline is not fun to read. Why would you think any part of the story would be fun to read when I have listed this story as angst? If you want to read something fun, read stuff that's been put in the humour genre. You also said that since this is fanfiction, it doesn't need to be realistic. To an extent, yes you're right. But the art of writing characters means that you have to be able to write them so that they act consistently. A part of this is that they behave and think the same way over a period of time. Ergo, Kate isn't going to wake up the next day and randomly think that she has been wrong about Castle all this time. For starters, this part of the story is set during season 1 and Beckett and Castle were completely different people in that season as opposed to how they are now because the way that they have changed has progressed slowly. I can't be the only person in the world who thinks that if Castle and Beckett had slept together in the first season, it would have been a complete disaster because they were so different. So I'm going to continue with my planned version of events and if this bothers you, just stop reading.**

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><p>"So, how'd things go with you and Castle last night?"<p>

Kate gives the Medical Examiner her best blank look.

"You mean to tell me I gave Castle your address and he _didn't _come round?" Lanie asks doubtfully, scrutinising Kate over her clipboard, pen pointing ominously in her direction.

_Right, of course Lanie was the one who told Castle where I live. _

Kate sighs, wondering when her best friend is going to realise she doesn't need her to interfere in her love life – or her life period. She's a grown woman, she can manage just fine on her own.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't seen Castle since I left the bar. Except for at the precinct this morning, of course," she says, hurriedly correcting herself and hoping that her quick cover up won't make Lanie suspicious.

"I don't know why you even left the bar, I thought we'd agreed you were gonna get your freak on and show Writer Boy exactly why you're his muse-"

"-Lanie!"

"What? It was what we talked about. You were at least going to work out all this confused sexual tension between the two of you-"

-"Would you shut up?" Beckett hisses, noticing Castle standing at the end of the alley.

_Great, how long's he been standing there?_

She can feel his eyes on her, flat and unwavering, the intensity of his gaze giving her the illusion that he can see right through her, almost like that first day when he kept looking at her over the top of his fanmail they were reading. He'd known then that she wasn't quite what she seemed, so he must know now that she's still not quite giving everyone the whole picture.

"You wanna tell me about the body instead of what I should or shouldn't have been doing this weekend?" she asks, finishing just before Castle stops and stands beside the body, a foot or more of space between them.

Lanie fixes her with a look that would have had the boys quailing, but Beckett just rolls her eyes, long-since used to her friend's antics. She doesn't have to tell Lanie anything. She'd rather just forget that night ever happened; everything about it is shameful and fills her with remorse. She'd held firm that first time when he'd tried to get her into his bed so it bewilders her now that she let him kiss her and touch her, that she led him into her bedroom, especially since she's known all along that he doesn't do relationships of substance, that he likes his busty blondes and those nights with no strings attached that so often end up on _Page Six_. All those innuendos and hints, the way he talks about his '_deep fried twinkie' _of an ex-wife. God, she feels like a fool.

At the time it was intoxicating, impossible to resist. It was like there was something between them, some magnetic force; a pull that just intensified the longer his mouth was on hers. She'd been so distracted by how good it felt to really think about what was happening and how much she'd regret it afterwards. If she _had _slept with him back when she was nineteen and lying about her age, she probably wouldn't have this ridiculous problem. She was different then; a one night stand would have been no problem for rebel Becks, just like it's obviously not a problem for him now. All he's ever done since the failure of his two marriages is have one night stands. They're both such different people – he's changed from a sweet, caring strange into a man who only ever seems to want to annoy her, while she's gone from being a wild teenager looking to see how far she can push the rules to a broken woman, determined and serious about everything from her mother's murder to what to wear to work.

"Cause of death seems to be this contusion on his head, though there are a few more – one here on his neck just under his collar, so that could be a contributory factor," Lanie finally says, indicating the two large, red marks on the body with her pen.

Beckett nods. "Any ID?"

"Afraid not, wallet's missing, even seems like the guy's car keys were taken – he's just got this empty keyring hooked on his finger her," Lanie replies, lifting their victim's hand to show the hoop of metal hanging off his stiff, crooked finger.

"So robbery gone wrong?"

There's a moment of silence and she finds herself doing exactly what Lanie is: looking expectantly at Castle.

"What no treasure-obsessed pirates? No medieval knights? Curses or ancient family feuds? Or whatever other crazy, wild theory you usually come up with?" Lanie asks imperiously, placing a hand on her hip.

Castle shrugs, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. "Looks like a normal murder to me."

"Okay, now I _know _there's something up. What is going on with you two? You've not even spoken a word to each other. You're all dark and cool, barely talking let alone making jokes; you're irritable, sighing every five seconds," she says, spinning between the two of them. She waits, obviously expecting an answer that is not going to be forthcoming. "Whatever it is, sort it out!"

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><p>They're silent in the car. Neither of them looking at the other. Unlike most days, he stares out at the road and the cars ahead, refusing the urge to look at her. If he did, he might have noticed her hands gripping the steering wheel tighter than a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of its prey. He might have seen her clenched jaw and the way her eyes were almost continuously twitching as they flicked his way momentarily before she forced her gaze back onto the street, seething with anger. Anger at him for being in her car, for coming back to the precinct even though he's gotten what he wanted. Anger at herself for giving it to him in the first place, for being such an idiot. Anger at being unable to stop wanting to look at him.<p>

"Just tell me why?" It comes out of the blue. His voice rasping almost like he's actually in pain or something. Not that she has any idea what could be the cause of it.

"Why what?" Her voice sounds just as bad when she speaks for what feels like the first time in hours even though it's probably only been twenty minutes or half an hour at most since they left the crime scene. It surprised her that he'd trailed after her and walked around to the passenger side of her cruiser, but she hadn't voiced it. Now she wonders if this is why. So he would have her alone. Again.

"Why last night was a mistake?"

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><p>They arrive at the precinct and she's barely put on the breaks and switched off the engine before she rushes out of the car and slams the door behind her. The walls of the underground parking blur as she takes the steps to the elevator at a light sprint before deciding against the easy way and just legging it up the stairs. The burn in her legs is good as it leeches away at the adrenaline coursing through her system after their shouted argument. She doesn't go to the bullpen; instead she heads straight for the gym and without even changing her clothes first, starts pounding away at a punching bag while envisioning Richard Castle's cocky face as he whirled around at his stupid book launch party and asked her where she wanted him to sign, quite obviously staring at her chest. She hears his voice in her head.<p>

_I'd be happy to let you spank me._

_Most of my claims tend to be on the, erm, large side._

The bag swings wide, jumping up on its chain every time one of her fists connects with it, every time she curses herself for her mistakes. And then it smacks her straight in the face as her arms fail to catch it on it's return due to the shock coursing through her system.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you everyone for reading. I'll be going back to cover Beckett and Castle's argument in the car in the next chapter and then continuing the story in case anyone is wondering.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hey guys. Apologies for the delay in updating. Long story cut short, I broke my laptop so badly it wouldn't boot up and had to have it sent away for repairs so I couldn't do any writing for a little while. There was a massive issue with having it delivered back to me at a different address, which just kind of prolonged everything. I'm sorry I couldn't give you any forewarning on the matter.**

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><p>"I don't know why you even left the bar, I thought we'd agreed you were gonna get your freak on and show Writer Boy exactly why you're his muse-" he hears Lanie say before Kate interrupts.<p>

"-Lanie!" she exclaims, clearly uncomfortable – her tone almost to the point of horror.

"What?"Lanie asks, sounding completely unashamed, "It was what we talked about. You were at least going to work out all this confused sexual tension between the two of you-"

-"Would you shut up?" Beckett hisses, eyes darting around before settling on him for half a second longer than anyone else. He squares his jaw, trying to work up the courage to join them by the body before forcing his legs to carry him there. Every stride he takes towards her, he tells himself not to let it bother him, convincing himself that he can still show up and work alongside her every day until his book is finished, and that it doesn't matter if all he was to her was a one-time thing, a means to some sort of end.

"Cause of death seems to be this contusion on his head, though there are a few more – one here on his neck just under his collar, so that could be a contributory factor," Lanie says, indicating the two large, red marks on the body with her pen as he stops smack-bang in the middle of the two women.

Beckett nods. "Any ID?"

"Afraid not, wallet's missing, even seems like the guy's car keys were taken – he's just got this empty keyring hooked on his finger her," Lanie replies, lifting their victim's hand to show the hoop of metal hanging off his stiff, crooked finger.

He stands silently, waiting for the talking to be done so that he can leave. He'd thought that he was there for answers, but now he's not so sure.

"So robbery gone wrong?"

He startles somewhat upon the discovery that not only is Lanie looking at him in disbelief; but so is Beckett.

"What no treasure-obsessed pirates? No medieval knights? Curses or ancient family feuds? Or whatever other crazy, wild theory you usually come up with?"

Castle shrugs, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. "Looks like a normal murder to me."

"Okay, now I _know _there's something up. What is going on with you two? You've not even spoken a word to each other. You're all dark and cool, barely talking let alone making jokes; you're irritable, sighing every five seconds," Lanie says, spinning between the two of them. "Whatever it is, sort it out!"

He swallows hard, realising that he'd been so caught up in thinking over what he had overheard Lanie and Kate talking about and trying to ascertain the motivational factors behind Beckett's behaviour that he had begun to exude a cold mask of indifference, one that barely hinted at the anger within.

Working on autopilot, he trails after Kate, hands deep in his pockets while he's stuck in thought. She shows no reaction to him getting into her Squad car, not that he'd notice anyway. It's only when the engine rumbles to life and vibrates his seat that he jerks around to stare at her as she pulls out onto the road, and then he begins studiously ignoring her.

* * *

><p>Silence and tension pervade the atmosphere, the both of them refusing to turn their attention to one another. Instead, he keeps his gaze on the cars in front and to the side of them, trying to guess where each vehicle might be heading and stop himself wondering exactly what kind of agreement Kate and Lanie had made and why. Thinking of that reminds him of how he felt as he gathered up his clothes before leaving Beckett's apartment.<p>

He's not sure he wants to know why she slept with him, why it was a mistake, but in the end his curiosity wins out and he finds himself pleading with her, "Just tell me why?"

"Why what?"

"Why last night was a mistake," he answers, already getting ready for an argument with her because he knows a storm is coming.

"What do you mean why was it a mistake? Isn't it obvious?"

"Well if it was I wouldn't be asking, would I?" he snaps in response to her insulting tone. "So tell me, Beckett, what was it I did that was so wrong because I don't recall hearing any objections from you." He's watching her now. He sees her grit her teeth, clearly frustrated with him. It isn't wise but he can't resist hammering the nail further in. "Nothing but wanton moans, _Detective._"

"Shut up," she commands, but he carries on, describing all the various sounds she had made for him, all the ways she had spurred him on, until she starts yelling. "It was a mistake, Castle, because you're a jerk, a shallow asshole who bought his way onto my team through his connections. It may be news to you, but I am _not _one of your airheaded bimbos looking for a one night stand so they have some sort of claim to fame. I do my job, Castle, because I want to find justice for people. You wanna know what happened to Katherine Harlow – the rebel version of me you were so keen on? She died right along with my mother. You wanna know what happened? My mother died and my father was a drunk, my boyfriend didn't give a shit about me because I was only going out with him in the first place to annoy my parents. I had nobody, nobody who cared about the fact that I couldn't cope. I found one of my mother's books just days after, you know, her copy of _Hell Hath No Fury, _and I realised who you were." She pauses and lets out a short, humourless laugh. "She loved your books, you were her favourite author. But if she knew the real you, even she would have stopped reading your books." Her bitter words, the feral twist of her mouth, have him wincing; but she just continues her tirade. "You should know that I'm not interested in one night stands anymore, Castle. But since you've finally got what you wanted, I guess you can quit with the stupid Nikki Heat excuse now and finally leave me in peace so I can do my job properly without you constantly interfering."

It doesn't quite register that she's managed to drive them all the way to the precinct and safely park her car despite her angry shouts until she removes the keys from the engine and opens the door, stepping out before slamming it behind her and striding away as quick as her legs will carry her. He sits dumbfounded.

_She thinks that was a one night stand?! _

He decides there and then that if Kate Beckett thinks that after the night they had shared, he's any less determined to stick around, that he wants nothing more than one night in her bed, she must be crazy. After a night like that, he wants nothing more than to be able to spend _every _night in her bed. Meredith may be a deep fried twinkie; but Kate Beckett is a drug that he will never get bored of, a drug that will always take him to new highs – an addiction he'll never be quite able to ignore, let alone forget.

* * *

><p>The loft is quiet as he leans back against his front door, his weight carrying it shut. He thinks for a moment – worries more like – that maybe he should have stayed at the precinct and gone after her instead of letting Beckett push him away again, but he needed time to process everything that had just happened, time to work out a way forwards. Because there is no way he is giving up and letting her go. Not when he's only just got back into the swing of writing. He believes in magic and signs from the universe. And the fact that she puts words in his head and makes his fingers itch; it has to mean something or be a sign or <em>something<em>. He just needs to find some way to prove to her that the Richard Edgar Castle she arrested in relation to Alison Tisdale's murder is nothing like Richard Alexander Rodgers.

Taking his cell phone from the pocket, he hurriedly scrolls through his contacts, making a mental note to put her onto speed dial for ease in the future, and calls her number, pacing with nervous energy and impatience as he listens to the dial tone and the repeated rings until finally he gets her voicemail.

_Hi you've reached Detective Kate Beckett. I'm sorry I can't take your call right now. Leave a message._

"Kate-Beckett," he says, changing his mind and hoping to appease her with the use of her surname, "It's Castle, I just wanted to talk to you, so call me back when you're not busy." He waits patiently for half an hour before trying her again, finding that instead of ringing out until her voicemail cuts in, Beckett rejects his call after just two rings. He would have been willing to believe she was just too busy to take his call, perhaps in the middle of an arrest or a search, until his next five calls were similarly ended.

He's sat numbly with his laptop, trying to compose an email to her, when Alexis unlocks the front door and shuffles in, her schoolbag stuffed to the brim with thick textbooks weighing her down.

"Hey Dad, you're home early."

"Hmm? Oh, Beckett didn't need me this afternoon," he lies, knowing though that on some level it's true. Before his daughter can glance over his shoulder at his laptop – as she often does when he's working on a new book – he pulls the screen down and shifts his laptop away, instead turning towards Alexis to ask her about school.

"It was fine," she says with a shrug, moving past him to the stairs. But either he doesn't have as good a poker face as he thought, or she must have heard something in his voice because she pauses at the foot of the stairs, spinning on her heel to confront him. "Dad, is everything okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be, Pumpkin?"

"Well, this morning you went into the precinct late and this afternoon you were home early, and you haven't told me one thing about the case. Did you have an argument with Detective Beckett?"

For a moment he contemplates telling Alexis she's imagining things, that not spending the whole day at the precinct for once doesn't mean he and Beckett have fallen, but then he remembers how guilty he always feels after lying to her, even if it's for her own good. "We're not on the best of terms," he admits carefully, still not sure how much information he wants to divulge. He's definitely not going to be telling her that he slept with Kate because regardless of his parenting morals, it's exactly the kind of thing that will cause his teenage daughter to cover her ears and blabber at him until he shuts up.

"You're never on the best of terms. What did you do this time, Dad?"

"Who says _I _did anything?" he asks, receiving the stinkeye for the comment as Alexis places her hands on hips in what is an almost perfect imitation of her grandmother. Taking a moment to appropriately word his reply, Rick tells her, "I may have given Kate the impression that I had less than honourable intentions when I asked the mayor to help me secure the ride-along."

"So tell her your real intentions then."

"Yeah, that's just a little bit more difficult now she's refusing to accept my calls and not talking to me."

Alexis nods understandingly. He's never been able to fully comprehend how his daughter developed such a high level of empathy despite her young age. He knows he was nothing like that when he was a teenager. "So show her. Keep showing up," she advises, leaving him then to head up the stairs and change out of her uniform before starting her homework for the evening.

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><p><strong>AN: Hope you guys enjoyed the update. Let me know what you thought!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the delay in updating. My exams will be finished next week, so I can hopefully get back to a more regular update schedule. Thank you all for your reviews, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

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><p><em>Previously…<em>

_She doesn't go to the bullpen; instead she heads straight for the gym and without even changing her clothes first, starts pounding away at a punching bag while envisioning Richard Castle's cocky face as he whirled around at his stupid book launch party and asked her where she wanted him to sign, quite obviously staring at her chest. She hears his voice in her head._

_'I'd be happy to let you spank me.'_

_'Most of my claims tend to be on the, erm, large side.'_

_The bag swings wide, jumping up on its chain every time one of her fists connects with it, every time she curses herself for her mistakes. And then it smacks her straight in the face as her arms fail to catch it on its return due to the shock coursing through her system._

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><p>"Will?" she asks in disbelief, staring up at him from the floor where she lies flat on her back after the bag.<p>

He smiles a little, eyes sparkling as he stretches out a hand and pulls her back onto her feet. "Hey, Kate."

"What are you doing in New York?" As soon as she asks the question, she realises how stupid and pointless it is. There's only one reason Will Sorenson, FBI agent, would be in the city. His job.

"I was assigned a case," he answers anyway. "It's good to see you, you know. Though you'll have to tell me what exactly the punching bag did to offend you." His lips press into another smile at his joke, though he watches her carefully and waits for an explanation.

She just rolls her eyes though, and tells him that she'll take him down to Montgomery's office, guessing that his case is going to require authorisation of police resources. If a kid is missing, then they're going to want as many people as possible involved in the search, and space to coordinate from. It's not a coincidence, she knows, that Will came to her precinct and sought her out. The only reason he would be in the gym with her would be if he wanted her help. Just like last time.

* * *

><p>Insistent buzzing disturbs her from listening to Captain Montgomery and his briefing and a scowl mars her face as she pulls her cell from her pocket and sees that it's Castle calling her. She's already missed one call from him, and she hasn't even listened to the voicemail he left her. Gritting her teeth, she simply rejects the call and returns her attention to Montgomery and the FBI's rundown of their newest case, refusing each of the calls that subsequently follow. Although Montgomery is briefing them all, the case is still under FBI jurisdiction, and only a select few detectives will be appropriated to work the case. She's of course, <em>randomly <em>made it onto that list. The murder investigation for the body she'd visited just an hour before is going to be handed off to Karpowski's team of detectives instead.

As soon as they're released from the meeting, Montgomery gives her orders to get down to Candela's apartment to take the statements of their missing child's parents, so she drives alone through the city streets as the light of day fades and steps under the crime scene tape for the first time in well over a month without Richard Castle's incessant talking.

"Mrs Candela, Mr Candela, I'm Detective Kate Beckett. I'm sorry to have to ask you to go through all this again when you've already told the officers and FBI before, but I really need you to go through everything with me again. When did you first notice that Angela was missing?"

She notes down everything the two parents tell her, trying to be gentle in asking the tough questions – why wasn't her father watching her, can they think of anyone who would want to take Angela. Sometime during the short interview, Will enters with a team of techs to start getting a tap on the phone and check CSU's progress with finding prints on the window frame where their perp jimmied the lock. She feels his eyes on her as she liaises with Alfred and Theresa to explain what the FBI are doing and what the next steps will be, the procedure for them to follow if they receive a ransom demand.

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><p>Groaning in frustration at getting her voicemail <em>yet again<em>, Rick dials for the precinct instead and requests to be put through to Kevin Ryan. All night he'd tried calling her without success, before he finally gave up and said goodnight to Alexis, setting himself up in his study with his latest chapter of _Heat Wave_, surprised that despite his current predicament; he doesn't have writer's block. He started calling again in the morning though, determined not to give up, only to find his muse uncooperative, rejecting his calls likely before her phone had even managed a second ring.

"Detective Ryan speaking," says his colleague-of-sorts.

"It's Castle."

"Oh, hey Castle, where've you been?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, we haven't seen you since the crime scene yesterday morning."

"Oh, uh, inspiration struck," he replies, scrambling for an excuse and then explaining, "And I needed to, you know, get it down before I lost all my ideas. But, I'm done now, so I was wondering if you could tell me where Beckett is?"

He breathes a sigh of relief as Ryan rattles off the address of the apartment where Beckett is without even questioning him over why he didn't call Beckett to begin with. Before he can think about it though, Rick hurriedly thanks him and hangs up, gathering his jacket. He's in such a rush, he forgets to finish putting away the leftover breakfast dishes and only remembers when he's in a cab and on his way to what has to be Beckett's next crime scene. Instead of allowing the taxi to take him all the way there, he hops out a few streets early after passing by a coffee shop and after settling his fare, he walks back and enters, joining the back of the early morning queue.

"Hi, can I get one grande macchiato, three pumps caramel and," he requests, pausing to study the menu above the counter and guess what kind of coffee would be Kate's favourite before he continues, "one grande skim latte with two pumps sugar-free vanilla to go please." The barista nods, taking down his order and grabbing two tall paper cups. "Oh, and a bear claw!"

Five minutes later, he walks out with a paper bag in one hand, balancing a cardboard tray with two coffees in the other, and heads around to the address Ryan had been so kind as to pass onto him. If coffee were allowed in the crime scene, he'd have gone in, but instead he's forced to wait outside, handing her the latte as soon as she appears, closely followed by a detective he's never once seen at any of the crime scenes.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" she asks, voice filled with exasperation. She barely caught any sleep last night, and even though her day has only just begun, a day which will most likely just be spent in the Candela's apartment waiting for a ransom call that might never come; she's exhausted. Too completely devoid of energy, in fact, to kick up a fuss about his appearance. Even if she weren't so beat, she's not sure she would be any more caustic with him. There's something about Will's presence that seems to temper her mood, even when she knows that she should feel something other than relief at his friendly face and how often he recalls things between them through a pleasant haze.

"One grande skim latte, two pumps sugar-free vanilla and a bear claw. Consider it a peace offering."

She frowns at him as she takes it – that act in itself a surprise to him. "How did you know…"

"I'm a novelist," he replies airily. "It's my job to notice things." He gives her a hard look at that, seeing her briefly squirm before looking away. "So, another case?"

"Sorry, who are you?" the other detective says, seeming to appear out of nowhere at Kate's side.

"Richard Castle," he replies, holding out his hand to shake the other man's. He doesn't miss the way his eyes flick to Kate's or how close he's stood beside her. "And you are?"

"Castle, this is Agent Sorenson," Beckett says, answering for him though.

"Agent?" he asks, looking Sorenson up and down as it hits him that he and Beckett are no strangers.

"Yeah, FBI."

"What's the FBI doing here?"

"FBI has jurisdiction of child abduction cases," Beckett answers again, mechanically repeating information she's heard before.

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><p>They're alone again, Agent Sorenson off somewhere doing something, when she says, "Well, you should probably go home. You're not needed here and I doubt the FBI's going to accept your presence here."<p>

"Who says I'm not needed? You?" he asks, pointing at Kate. "Or your ex-boyfriend over there?" She refuses to answer. He doesn't want to goad her further, but he and Alexis were agreed. He needed to stick around if he was going to get anywhere with convincing her that he could at least occasionally act like a grown up. "Because I actually think that I need to be here to get some inspiration for my book. This is a completely different ball game for you, Beckett. No good, old-fashioned homicide to solve; instead a missing child." A shadow crosses her face. "Seeing how you deal with different things adds layers to Nikki's character."

She groans and scrubs a hand down her face. "Seriously, can you just go? I can't deal with this right now."

He pauses, ready to step around her and hail a cab if that's what she really wants. It probably is what she wants, he thinks. Just maybe not what she needs. Sometimes he thinks that she doesn't quite realise that those two things can be completely different. Want and need.

Touching her arm in what he hopes she'll only construe as a reassuring gesture, he asks, "It's not a different ball game, is it?"

The shake of her head is tight, a movement so small anyone else would miss it. But he sees it, just as he sees the way she folds her arms in front of her body and hunches her shoulders, and he catches a glimpse of the misery she's worked so hard to overcome.

"You've worked a child abduction case before."

She nods, unwilling to say anything more when they're still standing right outside the crime scene in front of a handful of uniforms, more detectives and a huddle of FBI agents.

"Take you for a walk?" he suggests, hoping he can provide an environment where she feels able to confide in him.

"Got work to do," she replies with a shake of her head, unfolding her arms and straightening her body. She strides to her squad car, presumably ready to return to the precinct, and he stumbles the first step after her, roused from an amazed stupor of admiration for her willpower and determination.

He doesn't mean to let silence fill the car, but for the life of him he can't think of anything to say. He counts his lucky stars that unlike their last disastrous carpooling experience, even though they have not said a word to each other, there's less tension between them.

"It was three years ago. I'd just made detective," she mumbles. "A kid went missing, six year old boy, and the feds were called in on it, appropriated some manpower from the 12th – I was just one of the people helping. Agent Sorenson was working the case too, and somehow we always seemed to end up running down the same leads. When you're working like that, close quarters every day, under a lot of pressure…things just happen. It lasted six months, and then he got a job offer in Boston and left. That was that. Obviously what we had wasn't as important."

He's almost afraid to ask, but he does anyway. "And the missing boy?" He has his answer when she looks away, leaving him unable to speak for a moment. He's often thought what it would be like to lose Alexis, to lose his daughter; but he's never wondered what it would be like to be the person who would have to tell a child's distraught parents. He can see it now in his mind though; Beckett pushing herself harder than ever because it's a child out there, a child at risk. There's nothing stronger than the love between a parent and their child, being between that, being the one put in charge of making sure that doesn't end…it's not a responsibility anybody would want. Not for the first time, he finds himself asking how Kate can stand getting up in the morning and going to work when she sees the worst side of humanity every single day.

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><p>"Why are you still here, Castle?"<p>

"What do you mean? I'm working the case. A child's at risk so it's all hands on deck according to the Captain."

She chews her lip before pushing the words out. "No, why are you still following me around Castle? You should be walking the streets of New York with a self-satisfied swagger, that or leaving with your tail between your legs. I- I was horrible to you and you, what, just forgot everything I said?"

"No, I didn't forget," he responds quietly, still thinking over what she expects him to say. "You didn't give me a chance to explain anything, to…have my say." He pauses, flicking a quick glance at Beckett in her chair to gauge her reaction. "And, well, the story's not done. All those legal documents you saw me sign in September, and my contract with Black Pawn, I'm supposed to shadow you until the manuscript is complete."

"Your say?"

He nods.

"Go on then," she says after flicking her eyes around the bullpen and finding that nobody is paying them enough attention to eavesdrop. "No time like the present, right?"

"Thank you," Castle tells her quietly before beginning, "I understand why you would think that all I was looking for was a quick fling. I know that I don't have the best relationship track record, that my public image shows I have more than a penchant for nights with no strings attached, and yeah I talk big game about getting laid for all of the nineties; but, Kate I wasn't always like that. I _have _been in serious, long-term relationships before. I just got, I don't know, disillusioned. I used to fall hard, naively believe that this time it would last, this time I'd found the girl – my one and done, as you call it. But after two failed marriages, and even more failed relationships, it's hard to stay positive. It got to the point where I just stopped looking, just like I stopped looking for Katherine Harlow in dodgy bars and down every street. Maybe the other night was a mistake because we were moving too fast, but there is no way I would ever want just one night with you. Even when I first met you, watching you leave, I knew you were something special."

"You don't even know me, Castle."

"Yes, I do," he argues softly, shifting forwards in his seat so that his hands brushes against hers. "I know that your favourite colour is purple and that you're a bit of a nerd – even though you try to hide it. You love to travel and to learn. I know you get a kick out of teasing me, that your favourite food is Chinese. I know that you're a great friend to Lanie and a great boss to Esposito and Ryan. Vodka and Coke was your first alcoholic drink. Elephants are your favourite animal," he says, running a finger over the head of the first of her line of elephants. "I know that you're more dedicated to your job, to justice and the truth, than anything. I know that despite what you say, you're a fan of my books. I know that you're fiercely independent. I know that you hide it away, but you have a great capacity to love, Kate. Come on, Beckett, I know how you take your coffee and you never even told me. I know you!"

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><p><strong>AN: Sorry to end this chapter there. I had most of this chapter written since the end of April, and have gone back to periodically continue it when I've had time in between revision. This just felt like a natural place to finish for me. The next chapter is underway so it shouldn't be too long before you guys get to read more.**

**As always, thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Hey guys, thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favourites! Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up. It took me a while to actually write this one because I kept getting writers block. But it's here now. So…**

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><p>Somehow they've ended up with a truce of sorts. Of course, it's awkward, but neither of them ever said it wouldn't be. They've stepped over a line and they can't change that. She just didn't think moving on from it would ever be this hard.<p>

Friends, that's what they said.

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><p>"<em>I understand why you would think that all I was looking for was a quick fling. I know that I don't have the best relationship track record, that my public image shows I have more than a penchant for nights with no strings attached, and yeah I talk big game about getting laid for all of the nineties; but, Kate I wasn't always like that. I have been in serious, long-term relationships before. I just got, I don't know, disillusioned. I used to fall hard, naively believe that this time it would last, this time I'd found the girl – my one and done, as you call it. But after two failed marriages, it's hard to stay positive. It got to the point where I just stopped looking, just like I stopped looking for Katherine Harlow in dodgy bars and down every street. Maybe the other night was a mistake because we were moving too fast, but there is no way I would ever want just one night with you. Even when I first met you, watching you leave, I knew you were something special."<em>

"_You don't even know me, Castle," she tells him with a shake of her head. She thought he'd know by now that she was too broken, that there was nothing special about her. In the last few months of him following her, she thought he would have seen that. He's watched her closely enough._

"_Yes, I do," he argues softly, shifting forwards in his seat so that his hands brushed against hers. "I know that your favourite colour is purple and that you're a bit of a nerd – even though you try to hide it. You love to travel and to learn. I know you get a kick out of teasing me." She can't help but smile softly, ducking her head to hide the curl of her lips as he says that. It's true; joking around with the man is one of the only things that brings entertainment to her day. "Your favourite food is Chinese. I know that you're a great friend to Lanie and a great boss to Esposito and Ryan. Vodka and Coke was your first alcoholic drink. Elephants are your favourite animal," he says, running a finger over the head of the first of her line of elephants. She had to tamp down the protective impulse to draw away from him the ornament that had belonged to her mother._

"_I know that you're more dedicated to your job, to justice and the truth, than anything. I know that despite what you say, you're a fan of my books. I know that you're fiercely independent. I know that you hide it away, but you have a great capacity to love, Kate. Come on, Beckett, I know how you take your coffee and you never even told me. I know you!"_

_Her mouth is thoroughly dry now, voice cracking as she asks, "So what do we do now then?"_

"_We could start with being friends." He suggests it with a shrug, guessing that asking her to jump right into a relationship will just send her running. _

"_Friends?"_

"_Yeah, Beckett, friends. You know, two people who get along okay, spend time with each other without wanting to kill one another. That kind of thing. Nothing romantic; just enjoying each other's company. Completely platonic."_

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><p>Remembering it still leaves her feeling confused. The wealth of knowledge Castle has about her just from casual observances is mindboggling. She's tried listing everything she knows about him, but the list doesn't even compare: a fact that irritates her since her deductive powers are usually one of her strengths.<p>

Her phone rings, vibrating on top of the dresser beside her bed and signalling the start of another day at work. A new case. Ending her morning contemplation, Kate swings her legs out of bed before grabbing the phone, flipping it open to accept the call with the location of her murder victim.

"Beckett," she answers before even hearing a hello.

"_Got a body down at Tompkins Square Park."_

"Uh huh, got it. Be there ASAP."

Without waiting for a response, Beckett hangs up and instead dials the number for Castle, drumming her fingers against the top of her bedside cabinet while waiting for him to pick up.

Finally she gets an answer though; an obviously sleep-riddled answer swiftly followed by a yawn.

"I wake you from your beauty sleep, Castle?"

"I don't need beauty sleep, Beckett; I'm ruggedly handsome 24/7," Rick replies, grinning to himself.

"Uh huh."

"You don't believe me, Beckett?" He yawns again before rolling and flopping onto his back, the sound of those two actions rustling in her ear and bringing up unbidden images of his broad chest against stark white bedsheets. "Beckett?"

Blinking, the images disappear as she refocuses on her own bedroom. "Got a body. Meet me at Tomkins Square Park." Snapping her cell phone shut, Kate hangs up.

"Okay, bye," Rick mumbles into the disconnected line before heaving a sigh and pushing aside his duvet.

As quick as he can, Rick goes through his morning routine, pulling on a t-shirt and jeans after what had to be one of his quickest ever showers. Forgoing shaving – the fans seemed to prefer his ever-present stubble more at the moment anyway – simply because he knows he's running out of time, Rick hobbles about his bedroom while he puts on one shoe and then the other, grabbing his jacket as he hurries out to his office and into the kitchen, pausing only to press a kiss to the top of Alexis' head and wish her a great day at school before he's out the door.

Despite his speed, he still makes it to the crime scene after his muse who has the benefit of using her siren to speed her car journey along. Even New York cab drivers can't beat that.

"Morning," he says in greeting as he joins Beckett, Espo and Ryan beside Lanie and the cadaver. The boys nod in reply, but Kate is silent until he passes her a small cup of coffee along with the words, "Thought you might need a little caffeine fix."

"Why?"

"You were a little impatient. I didn't even get a goodbye this morning."

Rolling her eyes, Kate spins around and walks back over to the police tape, ducking under it before continuing back to her squad car since the boys and the uniforms at the area already have their canvassing underway.

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><p>Castle turns to follow Beckett only to find one of Esposito's hands on his chest, holding him back.<p>

"This morning? Dude, you got something going on with Beckett?"

"I don't think so," Lanie interrupts, answering for him while he flounders and panics for the smallest of moments. "My girl would have told me if she and Writer Boy were getting it on."

"I was talking about her phone call concerning our dead friend." Rick shoots the two detectives a sarcastic smile as he points a single finger down at the body sprawled atop the grass at the feet.

"Hear that?" Ryan asks Esposito, turning to face him. "Phone call. _Phone call._" Choosing his moment, Rick sidesteps around Esposito and Ryan, following on after Beckett. Ryan's voice trails after him while he walks. "I told you there was nothing going on between them."

For a moment he had feared that Kate had not waited for him, that she had already returned to the precinct and he would be forced to either flag down a cab or hitch a lift with the boys, but as he moves out of the treeline he sees her and jogs the rest of the way, nodding appreciatively as she reaches across the console to open his door for him.

"Thanks."

Gifting him the smallest of smiles, more of an acknowledgement than anything else, she returns her coffee to the cupholder in the dashboard and starts up the engine as he folds himself into the seat, shifting and trying to get somewhat comfortable while the dodgy spring in the chair digs into his backside. Once his door is closed, she changes gear and noses the Crown Vic out onto the road.

She doesn't really mean to let silence reign between them; that's just the way it seems to be for them most of the time now. Still, she makes a concerted effort.

"How's the book coming? Changed my character's name yet?"

"Your character?" he challenges.

"The character you're basing on me," she says, correcting herself.

"_Nikki Heat_'s first escapade is going well, thank you," he replies, making sure to emphasise the character's name because he knows how much it irritates her.

"You realise _Nikki Heat _is going to make me the joke of the department, right?"

"Come now, Detective Beckett, I think you're worrying needlessly. Nikki is a smart detective first and foremost." In the back of his mind, he thinks about the tequila chapter between Nikki and Rook, wondering if he should just cut that out now before it gets sent for editing, knowing that of course Kate Beckett will shoot him for practically copying out their lives on the page and for the level of embarrassment she is sure to feel when Ryan and Esposito start hazing on her for the relationship between their fictional counterparts. For the first time since he began what he's timidly been calling _Heat Wave _for the last three weeks, Richard Castle is dreading what might happen if the book is accepted by _Black Pawn _and gets printed. "Your fellow cops are going to appreciate her integrity and detective instincts."

His carefully measured tone, the placating quality of his words, makes her suspicious. _He wouldn't do anything too inappropriate, would he?_

She shoots a doubtful look at him, but the glance is too short for his liking – the road commanding her attention as the cars in front of them beginning slowing in their approach of the next intersection.

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><p>Back at the precinct, Beckett starts putting together the murder board, starting with what they know about the victim.<p>

_Jared Knowles. 35. Single parent. Wife deceased. Construction worker._

So far what they know doesn't provide any insight into a motive for his murder, nor suggest suspects. But Ryan and Esposito are just finishing up canvassing the scene for witnesses, and later she'll get a report from CSU on any evidence in the park. Hopefully, they – or Lanie – will recover a print that'll close the case for them.

Rick watches silently as she writes everything on the whiteboard in neat, block capitals; not even stopping after she reminds him that the staring is creepy. It's not like there's anything else for him to look at. Montgomery's office is empty since the captain is at a meeting down at 1PP, and Karpowski's team are out at their own crime scene.

"So, what are you thinking?" Castle finally asks. "Revenge murder?"

Beckett shook her head, silently deep in thought.

"What then? Seems a bit unlikely for a construction worker to be stabbed in broad daylight, if you ask me." A moment passed, a moment in which Kate Beckett prayed that any ridiculous theory he happened to think up would stay inside his head. Unfortunately for her, he gasped and then exclaimed, "What if he's a spy?!"

"Castle," Beckett scoffs, "he's a single parent, not an agent of the CIA."

"I never said CIA," he points out. Beckett says nothing in response; instead simply perching on the edge of her desk while waiting for the boys to return from the park. "Come on," Castle tries again, "You've got to admit that something here doesn't add up. I'm a single parent, Beckett, and I can tell you that we don't get involved in the shady kind of stuff that means you wind up dead."

"Says the guy who stole a police horse. Naked."

Before he can make a rebuttal, the boys stride into the precinct, the both of them crowing and quite clearly celebrating something. He shares a mystified look with Beckett before calling out to them, "What's got you boys so cheerful?"

"We just solved the murder, didn't we, bro," Esposito answers with a jubilant expression.

"Don't tell me," Rick exclaims. "It was spies, right?"

Ryan frowns, shaking his head, quite clearly bewildered by the leaps the writer's mind sometimes makes. "No, we found this two blocks from the scene." In the hand he holds up is an evidence bag with a knife that is too bloody to not be their murder weapon. "CSU already lifted prints from the handle."

"Won't be long before we have an ID on our guy," Esposito adds, folding his arms and standing proud as though waiting for the accolades to begin descending upon him.

When the call comes through from the crime lab, the DNA testing on the blood covering the blade leaves no doubt that it is their murder weapon though, confusingly the prints on the handle of the knife also belong to Jared Knowles.

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><p>Dropping her phone back onto its cradle, Beckett sighs. "I just don't get it. The lab swears there's been no mistake with the prints." Rick opens his mouth to reply but before he can speak, Kate holds a finger up at him. "Before you say for the fifth time that you think spies are <em>somehow<em> involved, I need something to eat. You wanna go get lunch?" Kate asks Rick since they're still not getting anywhere with the case.

"Sure, where do you want to go?"

"Remy's?" she suggests before adding, "It's not far, and they do great shakes."

"Lead the way," he responds, standing and grabbing his jacket.

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><p><strong>AN: For now, this is it. I'm going to continue with their little lunch date in the next chapter though. Let me know what you think!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thank you all so much for continuing to follow this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

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><p>He steps into the diner just after her, taking a moment to absorb the atmosphere of the place before following her to a booth. Her quick, self-assured walk tells him she's been here before, enough times to have a table she always chooses too. She moves past three empty booths right next to the window before sliding into one of side of the one just before the table in the back corner. While he settles down opposite her, she grabs two of the menus out of the little carousel that holds all of the sauces and condiments, sliding one of them across to him.<p>

He peruses the list carefully, reading the descriptions of each and every burger whilst hers gets nothing more than a cursory glance to be sure that her usual order is still available. Indeed when their server comes over, pulling out a notepad and pen from the pocket of her apron, Kate fires off her order without pause.

"I'll have a tall coconut shake – no cream – and then I'll have the Buffalo burger, thanks."

Nodding, their waitress notes all of it down before asking, "You want fries with that?"

"No, thanks."

The waitress looks expectantly at Rick, but the man is still concentrating on the menu, murmuring the odd word every now and again as he apparently tries to choose between the Oreo shake and the caramel shake. Smirking, Kate sends a well-aimed kick to his shin, startling him enough that his kneecap collides with the underside of the table. He shoots her a look, turning his attention to the waitress when she flicks her eyes in her direction.

"Erm… I'll have the Oreo shake- no, wait… no, yeah, I'll have the Oreo shake." Kate doesn't have to look at the waitress to know that she's already growing irritated. "Would you recommend the Memphis burger or the Chef's burger?" he asks. "Or, is it better to just go with a classic cheeseburger?"

"Castle, just hurry up and order something," Beckett says with an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes because she should have expected this.

Finally, after several more minutes, minutes filled with impatient foot tapping and sighs, minutes Beckett spends looking out the window to her left watching passersby, he decides and the waitress leaves to go and get their milkshakes.

"So, how did you find this place?" Rick asks while the wait, wincing inwardly at how much his open curiosity sounds like small talk.

He thinks for a moment, her mind is working along the same track his is. The look she gives him, the one that seems to say, 'are you really that stupid?' would be evidence if she didn't follow it up with an answer to his question. "We're literally two blocks from the precinct. How do you think I know about it, Castle? Cops do go out for food and drinks together, sometimes." She punctuates the sentence with her signature eye roll. "It's easiest to go somewhere close to home." She looks around the place, remembering how often she had come here back when she was still a uniform and there was a whole group of them, Royce included, who would eat together, grab lunch or dinner or a snack while walking the streets. They're nice memories of friends largely since forgotten. The place is still the same though, it still brings warmth to her chest, still somehow makes her feel like she's kind of at homes.

He accepts her explanation with a nod. "I'm expecting great things," he warns as their waitress returns carrying two tall glasses – one filled with creamy white liquid and the other flecked with brown and complete with whipped cream and a cherry on top – on her round tray. She places the coconut milkshake down first and shoots Rick a dirty look as she puts the Oreo shake down on the table with enough force that some of the liquid sloshes down the side of the glass before disappearing again to care for the few other customers there. Had they been there an hour earlier, the place would have probably been busier; but half past two wasn't usually an acceptable lunch hour.

Smirking, Kate busies herself with her drink to stop laughter bubbling out at the shocked and disappointed look on Castle's face. It takes him a moment, but he gets over the slight and has a sip of his own milkshake, all resentment being washed away from his face by a kind of reverence she's only ever witnessed that one night.

Swallowing hard, she pushes the images and memories aside.

"Pretty good, huh?"

"This is- This is better than a smorelette!"

"Which is…"

"My own personal invention. The most delectable breakfast you'll ever encounter. An omelette filled with chocolate and marshmallows! What's not to love?"

"I'll think I'll just take your word for it," she mutters, trying not to be repulsed by the imagined taste as she takes another sip of her milkshake.

He gulps, the sound echoing loudly in his head. His eyes are probably bulging out. He imagines that if he was a cartoon character, they'd be extending out ten centimetres in front of him, zeroed in on the perfect 'o' Beckett's mouth makes as she wraps her lips around the top of her straw and sucks. God, it's hot, and he tries desperately not to think about how her lips would look wrapped around _him_ because they're meant to be friends now. And that's definitely not you're supposed to think about your friends.

Her eyes flick back from watching the level of her milkshake to him, wondering why he hasn't made any kind of response only to find him staring at her, mouth hanging open.

"Castle?" she asks uncertainly, dropping the straw and stirring it idly through the coconut liquid as she watches him.

"Hmm?"

"You okay?"

He blinks a few times and straightens up, closing his mouth before replying less distractedly, "Yep, fine. Just, you know, away with the fairies for a moment."

Her lips curl automatically. "Away with the fairies? _You_?" she teases, unable to stop herself because the image of Castle prancing through a meadow in his smart pants and buttoned-up shirt, with his hair bouncing with every step and flopping over his forehead and fairies zipping about and fluttering around him is just too ridiculous.

"You forget, Detective Beckett, I raised a daughter. I've had more tea parties and princess dress up days than I'd care to count."

"Pictures or it never happened," she responds.

"Really?"

Her eyebrow lifts but she says nothing, silently making some kind of dare, issuing a challenge to him. It flashes in her eyes for a moment before he groans, and she wonders whether to take the noise as acquiescence or agitation.

"Gotta get something in return then, Beckett." For a horrifying moment, his sentence lingers in the air between them. Her breath catches in her throat until he says, "Tell me something."

"Like what?"

Put on the spot, he scrambles for some titbit of information he's been hunting for, only to come up empty.

"Guess you'll just have to show me the pictures without-"

"-Tell me why I'm not allowed to look through your desk drawers?" he requests, interrupting her.

"Because it's private."

"That's not a proper answer," he complains.

"Yes, it is. I gave you reason, didn't I?"

"Well, yes, but there's obviously more to it than that. It's because there's something in there you don't want me to see."

"If you knew the answer, why did you ask?"

"Fine," he grumbles. "New question."

Suddenly it feels like them again, the two of them in the very beginning before they got two close and were stuck in some kind of awkward limbo. The atmosphere that's been hanging over them lifts and for the first time since the night it all went wrong, she thinks maybe they can do this. Maybe they can work together, maybe they can stay friends.

She's thought back to that day a week and a half ago more than once, trying to rationalise and understand why she agreed and why it was so easy for her to believe him. She hadn't been able to doubt the sincerity shining in his eyes, she knows. His eyes had pleaded with her to believe him. They'd been so intense she'd had the feeling he was looking through her, as cliché as it sounds. And his words – well, he always has had a way with them. That's definitely a part of it. But the rest of it? There's a voice in her head, a niggling doubt, that it has something to do with Will too. She hopes that the knowledge that sometimes life is too short to really hold a grudge was a bigger factor in her change of heart though.

The waitress returns with their food this time, disturbing her thoughts. Thanking her, Kate nods and smiles, waits until she leaves before she opens the burger and checks to make sure the chef hasn't added anything that shouldn't be there. Satisfied that it's only cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and Buffalo Hot Sauce, she replaces the top of the bun and lifts the burger into her hands, taking a large bite.

It pleases him that she's so obviously not the kind of girl that will just order a side salad. The spot of sauce at the side of her mouth brings a smile to his face too as he grabs a French fry and dips it briefly in tomato sauce before stuffing it into his mouth.

"You really like the burger then, huh?"

She shrugs, unabashed by him commenting on how much gusto she's digging in with. She can't quite recall the last time she came to Remy's. Occasionally someone will bring back some of their baked goods or coffees, but it's definitely been a long time since she had the pleasure of her favourite burger. The blue cheese that's melted atop the hot meat goes perfectly with the hot sauce, the two flavours dancing on her tongue.

"It's a good burger," she tells him. "How's yours?"

He takes his first bite of his burger, complete with bacon, pepper jack cheese, onion and bbq sauce before audibly moaning. As soon as his mouth is free of food, he exclaims, "Best burger ever!"

She grins, reaches across the table to pinch a handful of fries from his plate. "Told you so," she says with a cheeky grin.

"Surely if you wanted fries, you should have ordered some."

"Why bother when I can just steal yours? This isn't some kind of Rick-doesn't-share-food thing, is it?"

"I see how it is, Detective. You're only friends with me for my food-"

"-Don't forget your coffee machine," she adds, stealing another few fries.

He's not sure what's brought out this plucky, free side of Beckett; but he likes it. It feels more natural than the serious, carrying-the-weight-of-the-world persona she usually wears about her. Here, in the diner, she's light and easy. He wonders if it's just that – because she's in the diner instead of the precinct where she's expected to be professional, where justice is everything that matters – or if there's some other explanation for her behaviour, realising all the while he might never know. He knows now though, that all of this is just under the surface. She might claim that Katherine Harlow – the young and carefree, rebellious, teenage Beckett – is gone, but he's seeing glimmers of her.

He can't help grinning back at her, indescribably glad that he somehow managed to convince her to just try out being friends. Looking at her warm and happy eyes, her bright smile, he feels a tug in his heart though and knows he's always going to want more.

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><p><strong>AN: Let me know what you think!**

**(Also, making a brownie promise to start replying to all of your reviews again!)**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Thank you for all of your reviews. Apologies for how long it's taken me to write and upload this chapter. I've had some pretty bad writers' block concerning this story (so Rick does too in this chapter – it was literally the only thing I could think to write). I hope you like what went on to happen though. Also, FYI, writing at the same time as watching Wimbledon is really hard. **

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><p>For the third time that morning, his head thumps down on the table as another groan explodes out of his mouth.<p>

"Stupid block. Stupid block."

He pushes his chair backwards and looks up, the wheels squealing as they move along the polished wood floorboards, the blank white page on his laptop glares back at him, seeming to taunt him. For the first time in weeks and weeks and weeks the words just won't come. But it wasn't supposed to be like this – not once since he'd found his new muse had this happened. The problem was he hadn't seen her for a week. Beckett had been forced into taking holiday when her father unexpectedly went into hospital with a bad kidney infection. Although she'd argued that she could still work, the captain had been adamant and told her not to step foot in the precinct for a week – thus, his predicament.

He's tried everything he can think of, stooped so low as to even use those stupid writing prompts online.

_Electricity is a recent discovery. Think of 12 things to do when there's no power._

Panic.

Tell ghost stories.

Read by flashlight.

Play Hide and Seek.

Play board games.

Go out for a walk.

Candlelight smores.

Endure Mother's dramatics.

Stare at the TV and wish it was working.

Stare at the Xbox and think the same thing.

Check for signs of zombies and/or apocalypse.

Call Beckett.

Easy. It just didn't help get him any closer to writing the chapter of _Heat Wave _that Gina had been demanding for two weeks.

Giving in, Rick rolls his chair even further back from the desk before levering it back. His feet rest on the desktop as he pulls his phone from his pocket, dialling for Beckett.

"Castle?" She answers on the first ring, of course, sounding extremely confused to have heard from him.

"What are you doing?"

"Just leaving the hospital, why?"

"I need your help."

"With what…" The way she leaves her sentence, lets it trail off like that tells him she's either reluctant or cautious, both of which are probably sensible responses. He sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face, while the silence travels down the phone. Presumably she heard his pained sigh because the next second she's asking after him. "Castle? You okay?"

He hums noncommittally, unsure how exactly to phrase his request.

"What is it?"

Finally he just comes out with it, deciding that since it's Beckett he's talking to directness is probably always going to be the best approach. "I've got writers' block."

"Right…" He can tell she's nodding, processing it while still wondering how she's supposed to help him with that. He can almost hear her mind whirring, cogs turning from his office. "So you want me to…what, write with you?"

"No, no, nothing like that, Beckett. I need to get out of the loft, do something other than stare at a blank page. And well, I was hoping you might tag along with me, inspire me like you usually do."

He waits nervously, listening to silence again as she obviously considers his request.

"Meet you at Central Park?"

"Yeah, I'll be there," he promises, trying hard to reign in his enthusiasm because he honestly hadn't thought she'd agree to his plea. They were supposed to be friends, sure, but she had to have better things to do on her day off than indulge him. Just before she hung up, he spoke again. "And Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he says, trying to pour all his gratitude and everything else he felt about Kate Beckett into that one word. She gulps, the sound tinny as it echoes out of the tiny speakers of his cell phone before she hangs up.

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><p>Throwing the phone down on his bed as he passes, Rick hurries to shower, wanting to freshen up even though he'd done nothing strenuous since his last wash the previous evening. It looks like a muggy day outside though, the heat returning in full force with the pleasant spring weather. They're still waiting for the forecast storm, and though the sunshine makes it bright, it also makes the air humid – a fact that forces Rick into turning the shower controls down so low the water jetting out of the nozzle and sluicing down his body is almost freezing.<p>

His hair is still damp as he leaves the loft, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow, and top button undone so that he can leave his sunglasses hanging from the neck. It dries slowly in the sun as he wanders about Central Park after his short cab ride, searching for her short mop of dark hair and in particular that odd way she apparently now has of flicking the ends outwards. In the end, she appears behind him – since he didn't see her lounging against a tree, making use of its offered shade, and walked straight past her – surprising him easily.

"Hey, Castle," she says, suddenly walking beside him at his right shoulder.

He stumbles to a halt, his body automatically turning towards her. He gapes for a moment at the floral camisole she's wearing, her bare, tanned shoulders such a departure from the smart trousers and sweaters he's used to seeing her in. Even the cropped, peach jeans and tan sandals adorning her legs and feet are a welcome shock.

"H-hey."

Her lips twitch the tiniest of amounts at his stutter and his poor attempt to cover up his astonishment.

"How's your dad?"

"He's doing better," she says with a gentle smile. "Though the hospital still want to keep him in till tomorrow at the earliest just to check the infection's been completely flushed out. He's a little put out." The satirical tone and the roll of her eyes are enough to tell him that her father has most likely been kicking up a fuss about being forced to stay in medical care, rather than just go home with a round of antibiotics.

For a moment he can almost picture it. He doesn't have to be psychic to know that she would probably be exactly the same way. Only the worst illness would force her into accepting hospitalisation, her intractable independence clearly inherited from her father. He can imagine her sitting at an old man's bedside, hands on his shoulders to force him to lie back down as the doctor leaves.

"So how does this work?" she asks, disturbing him from the scenario playing out in his head. "What do you need to be able to write again?"

He beings walking, prompting her to fall into step beside him again. "Well, what does Detective Beckett get up to on her days off?"

She shrugs. "Chores."

"Come on, Beckett, that's boring. You have to do something fun, right?"

"Sometimes Lanie and I go out," she admits.

"Really, where do you go?"

"Lots of places," she answers automatically before realising that Richard Castle is practically interrogating her. Before he can utter another question, she rounds on him, ordering, "Enough with the Spanish Inquisition, Castle."

"I can't play Twenty Questions with you?" She glares, only to relent as he says, "For the book, of course, Beckett."

"Just so long as Nikki Heat and I stay two separate people-"

"-Of course, this is just for inspiration. Nikki's not you Kate, she doesn't even work at the twelfth for one. If you tell me that you go skinny dipping at the weekends, it doesn't mean Nikki will." God, he wishes she'd tell him she goes skinny dipping at the weekends.

She gives him the eye for that, but she's still walking right along with him, so he figures he's still got some leeway before she decides she's had enough and either slaps a pair of cuffs on his wrists or pulls a gun on him – not that he has any idea where she'd keep one in her current outfit.

He starts again, trying to get details of her life when she's just Kate Beckett, and not a homicide detective.

* * *

><p>They stop for ice cream – because he pleads, giving her puppy dog eyes, practically demands it – and he's still going with the endless enquiries.<p>

"So, pistachio? That your favourite?" he asks between licks of the scoop of toffee ice cream at the apex of his mountainous cone.

"Careful, only ten questions left," she cautions.

_Of course he bought what was sure to contribute to a heart attack. _The look on the vendor's face as he'd ordered five different flavour scoops of ice cream with three flakes and every sauce and sprinkle under-the-sun had been priceless. The poor man had probably never had to rig up a cone to withstand five scoops. She watches as he pulls out one of the chocolate flakes stuck in his quintuple ice cream and dips the end of it first in the chocolate ice cream and then the mint, before ensuring there was a sizable dollop of Strawberry there too, and takes a bite. She can see the headlines now. _Famous author dies from sugar overload. Death by sugar rush._

"That's not a proper question," he argues. "It was just an observation that I wanted you to verify or correct."

"Of course it was," she scoffs, shaking her head before answering him anyway. "Pistachio's pretty good. Street vendors don't usually sell my favourite, amaretto and coconut." She pauses, savours the coolness of the melting ice cream on her tongue before prompting, "So, question eleven?" Despite the grilling, she finds that she's kind of having fun. While she waits, knowing it could be a while because he wants to make every question count, and some of his other questions have been surprisingly deep, she turns her face up toward the sun, basking in the heat and light much like a cat sunning itself on a wall.

It's a comparison that jumps to the forefront of his mind instantaneously and brings a smile to his face because it's actually kind of perfect. Cats are solitary creatures, just like Beckett seems to be – sometimes friendly but mostly happy to keep people at a distance. He briefly entertains the idea of using that as his next question – if she was an animal, what she thought she'd be – but he doesn't want the image in his head spoiled. Instead, he carries on thinking.

"Before you became a cop, what made you want to become a lawyer?"

The questions comes out of the blue after so much silence between them. In truth, she'd been so focused on the sky and the chirping birds in the trees around them, finishing up her ice cream, that she'd actually forgotten he was there.

She thinks carefully for a moment. "My parents really loved it, you know. My mum worked criminal cases, but my dad tended to stick to the civil side of things; they were both helping people, just in different ways. They always said I was free to make my own choices, that I could go to college and choose whatever major I wanted, but I just never saw myself doing anything else, you know?" He nods, listening carefully.

"What would you have done? Criminal, civil or corporate?"

"Maybe all three of them one way or another. In the end, I'd probably have settled in criminal law. Or maybe I'm just saying that now because I know exactly how many people commit crimes and never get caught or prosecuted." She smiles wryly at him, clearly referring to how much her mother's murder has altered the way she thinks as much as her life choices.

Time for a less serious question, he thinks.

"Okay, the Mets or the Yankees?"

"Easy. Yankees, hands down."

* * *

><p>They leave in the early afternoon, Kate returning to her apartment, Rick swinging past Alexis' school to pick her up on his way back to the loft. While Alexis gets started on a physics project that she assures him she needs no help with, he enters his office and sits down before his laptop, full of trepidation.<p>

The screen blinks to life, the document containing his manuscript already up since he apparently forgot to actually shut down the machine and instead left it on sleep mode for a few hours. He stares for a moment, fingers resting neutrally on the keyboard. Just as he resigns himself to the fact that obviously nothing has changed, that still the words refuse to come, he thinks back to his enlightening few hours with Beckett and the beginnings of a chapter come to him. The words come in drips and drabs; he battles to get them down on the page before they're gone altogether.

He manages five hundred words before he has to stop to go and make dinner for Alexis and himself, his mother too if she deigns to return at an appropriate hour, and when his daughter asks how it's going, he can actually tell her, "It's okay." He can feel in his bones that he's back into the flow, knows in his head where the story is going.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So? Let me know what you think!**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Thank you to those of you who reviewed. I'm glad you enjoyed my use of my own writers block as the plot for the last chapter – very flattering! I was a bit inspired by one of the Ruben Santiago Hudson bloopers from season 3 for this first part of the chapter...**

* * *

><p>"A little birdie told me you had a bet going with the boys, a bet that you won, Detective." His voice comes out of the blue, disturbing her as she works to get to the end of the day. She didn't even know he was supposed to be back today, and thinks distractedly that a courtesy call to let her know would have been nice.<p>

"Yeah, Castle, what of it?"

He shrugs, acts nonchalant the best he can. "Well, I just thought that you might appreciate a chance to celebrate not having to do the forfeit," he says, prompting her to look up from the paperwork she's finishing. "What was it again? Oh, that's right, the loser has to have that 'Pretty Little Princess' sticker over their badge for a day." He chuckles for a moment, wondering who came up with that idea – certain that Kate would have been as equally repulsed by the threat as Esposito likely is. "I can't wait to see Rysposito sporting those… So, drinks on me?"

One of those perfectly tweezed eyebrows arches up at him, imitating the smirk that takes over her lips when she notices him gulp, Adam's apple bobbing. "Who says I haven't already celebrated?"

"It's you and this happened yesterday," he points out, knowing her well enough to know that all she likely did the previous evening was go home, eat something from the takeout temple in her fridge and crash out in bed. "So, how about it? Take you and the guys, Lanie too if she's free, for a drink?" It's been over a month since any of them have had time to do anything remotely unconnected to the precinct – Gina's deadlines have kept him hard at work on the final touches of his book, while Beckett and the boys worked what must have been overtime to keep up with the spate of crimes that seemed to double in the fast approach of summer. She'd only just returned from her week of leave when he had to leave. But his book was finally finished (the first draft at least – he was sure to have a bunch of corrections once the manuscript came back after subjection to Gina's editorial eye) and he was back playing cop, annoying as that probably was for his muse. "All on me, of course," he adds, as if that's going to clinch the deal.

Kate squirms in her seat, shifting infinitesimally enough that it goes unnoticed by her partner. _A drink?_ She thinks, that's what put them in a mess in the first place. She's comfortable calling him her friend now, but is it wise to jump right back into the Lion's den? What if something happens and it ruins the tenuous friendship they've managed to create?

"Go on, I promise we'll leave the tequila out of the evening," he says, able to tell she's wavering between saying no and saying yes as easily as if he could see her talking to a Devil and an Angel, each sat on one of her shoulders. "No funny business; just a drink between friends."

"Fine," she answers, shaking her head at him all the while. He's incorrigible. Was there even any way she'd have been able to refuse? "_But _only if the boys and Lanie can come out too." It comes as an afterthought – a desire for a safety net, for some kind of protection from him – or her – something to stop anything happening between them because there's no way she can sit alone with him in a dark New York bar and ignore the similarities, pretend nothing had ever happened. She would be a nervous, distracted mess even _with _other people there.

* * *

><p>Castle arrives with his hands full – a drink for each of them, including a vodka and Coke for her, which she has to shoot him a look over (R<em>eally, Castle?! Vodka and Coke?!<em>)as he hands it to her. And as soon as the drinks are with their owners, he inserts himself in the booth, stealing Lanie's place beside her while the ME is temporarily missing. She holds out that when Lanie returns from the bathroom, she'll order Castle up and out of her seat, but without a word she just grabs a chair and sets it square with the end of the table, shooting her a glance.

"To us, then, for solving a case that felt pretty unsolvable at times."

Beckett smiles, but only slightly – glad that no-one's looking at her enough to notice her obvious discomfort. Of course she had to end up stuck right next to Castle, though it wasn't like she could complain about it – not if she wanted their little secret to stay, well, a secret.

"To us," the rest of the table chant back to Rick, raising their drinks for the impromptu toast. A brief silence settles while they each take a drink, only the background chatter of the bar's other patrons there to fill it. And then, of course, Castle opens his big mouth again, as loquacious and eager to share as ever. "So, how was everything while I was gone?"

"Fine," Ryan answers, checking with Beckett and Espo for their agreement.

Dissatisfied, he tries again. "C'mon, Beckett, admit it. You missed me while I was gone." In the lack of response from Kate, he turns and points to the other side of the booth, his finger moving between Lanie, Ryan and Esposito. "You _all _missed me."

She's quick to quip, "Yeah, like Jerry misses Tom." Turning in the booth so that she's at least sort of facing him, Kate continues, "Do you know how quiet it was at the precinct without you, how much work I got done?"

"But how _fun _was it?" he says, countering her (clearly rhetorical) questions with one of his own. He's not stupid, he knows Beckett enjoys it when he teases her, that every time she rolls her eyes she's not actually as annoyed with him as she seems. "I think that's the real question here." He folds his arms across his chest and shoots them all a glance, looking smug as he waits for their answers – answers that are unlikely to be forthcoming. "Well, _I'll _be honest. I missed you guys."

"Yeah, bro, only 'cause you were stuck with your ex-wife calling every hour," Esposito cracks, bumping fists with Ryan and grinning even more widely when Castle gives him a wounded look.

"I'll have you know she only called to check-in twice a day," Castle finally replies, earning himself quite raucous laughter from both of the men and even Lanie, who practically cackles. "Though, yeah, I think I can still here the echo of her voice." His nose scrunches in distaste as he recalls Gina's daily moan. "Well, if you didn't miss me, I have to have missed some pretty good cases, right?"

Esposito and Ryan meet eyes before turning to look at Beckett, the three of them pulling the exact same expression of thought and doubt. They look at him with raised eyes and lips pressed together, shrugging.

"Nothing, really?" he asks in disappointed disbelief. "No pirates or treasure or unexplainable murders from inside sealed rooms? No aliens? No ancient blood feuds?"

"No," Kate answers. "And you wanna know why? Because this is New York, Castle; not ancient Greece or wherever else you think we live. None of that stuff _ever _happens." He pouts at her until she caves and sighs, finally revealing, "There was this one case, I guess. Pretty Castle-flavoured, wouldn't you say, boys?"

"Creepy-flavoured is what I'd call it," Espo mutters darkly.

She can feel his excitement, can tell that he's probably got that look in his eyes – the one that always seems to make out that he's experiencing the best day of his life – he always has when she tells him they've got a body, without even looking. It's obvious in the way his body practically thrums with energy, tensing and relaxing enough for her to feel the vibrations in the seat cushion.

"Tell me," he requests.

He expected Beckett to start the story, but it's Espo who begins, explaining, "So we caught a body at St Regis hotel over on 55th and when we got there, we found our vic dangling from the ceiling by barbed wire, cuts all over him and blood everywhere like some sort of ritual gone wrong or something."

"I like where this is going," Castle says, "It's like a mix between King and Patterson. Continue."

"So we ID our guy, talk to his family and of course, they tell us they can't imagine why he'd have been murdered – guy was a teacher, not a gang member or drug lord."

Castle nods, following the story with eagerness as Ryan picks it up.

"And his financials and cell phone history, all his texts and calls, it's all spotless. Nothing suspicious whatsoever. No obvious leads. I'm telling you, Castle, we were literally just sitting around waiting for results from Lanie and CSU, waiting for something to go on. Luckily, Lanie was able to pull DNA from under the victim's fingernails, but it just got more complicated from there. Apparently, he'd been…"

"Seeing four girls at the same time," Esposito says with a roll of his eyes when Ryan struggles to find a delicate way of phrasing the victim's moral misdemeanour.

"Classic," Castle mutters with a chuckle, rubbing his hands together because he can tell that things are about to heat up. "So what was it? Some twisted revenge crime?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, Castle, but none of the girlfriends were involved in the murder. One of them had a tussle with the victim the day he died because she'd found out about the other women, but after the fight she didn't _kill_ him; just broke up with him."

"You're ruining my moment of genius, Beckett."

Shaking her head, Kate shuffles a centimetre or so to the right and when he just stares at her, she pushes on his arm and complains, "I need to get out of the booth, _genius_-"

"-What, why?

"I need to get home-" she explains, suddenly seeming to be in a particularly bad mood.

"-You've only had one drink," he protests.

"I have my firearms yearly re-examination first thing in the morning."

"Some of us have real jobs," Esposito adds, standing up and draining his beer while he waits for Ryan to get up too.

"We're all on call tomorrow," Ryan clarifies, shrugging his shoulders apologetically.

Disappointed, Rick slides out and leaves space for Beckett to do the same. She doesn't speak as she pushes her arms through her blazer, doesn't look at him either despite the fact that she can feel his eyes are on her, waiting for a proper explanation.

"Even you, Lanie?"

The ME shakes her head. "Perlmutter's on shift tomorrow morning. I'm not due to work until six."

Just before the three cops walk away from the table, he calls out, "Well, at least finish the story! You can't leave me hanging like that!"

* * *

><p>"So, Castle, what's going on with you and my girl, huh?"<p>

"Nothing," he answers with a shrug as soon as he's over the surprise of the question.

The ME gives him a disbelieving look, never ending the eye contact even as he starts to squirm. "Really? Because it looked like she couldn't get out of here fast enough… Are you sure there's nothing bothering her? Nothing happened between you?" He shifts in his seat again, swallows, and tries not to look guilty. But then Lanie speaks again and it's almost as if she's read his mind. "So you haven't slept together?"

"No."

Lanie rolls her eyes at his completely unconvincing tone. "You know, you're a really bad liar, Rick. So what happened?"

"Kate didn't tell you? I thought you girls told each other everything."

"Not Kate," Lanie responds with a sigh. "No, Kate likes her privacy and her independence, even with me. So, wanna talk about it?" He gives her an uncertain look – knowing without having to talk to Beckett about it, that she doesn't want anyone to know about what happened, that she'd kill him on the spot or never speak to him again if she found out that he'd told Lanie. "My lips are sealed."

Nodding slightly, he gives in, the whole story pouring out in a matter of minutes, everything except perhaps what started it all – their meeting in _Barnes and Noble_.

"I just don't understand," he mutters dejectedly once he's finished. "I don't get why she pushed me away, why she can't see that I want more than just that one night, that I want her forever. As long as I'm joking around and we keep pretending that we're just friends, that nothing happened, it's fine, but when it gets serious…"

Lanie surveys him for a moment, saddened by the writer's pain. She wasn't sure before, when he first appeared at the precinct and their crime scenes, but it's obvious to her now that his feelings run deep. Finally she sighs. "It's not you, Castle. It's Kate, she just…does this. She's been so wrapped up in her mother's death, been so alone since it happened, that she's scared to get too close to someone and get hurt again. I'm not sure it's even a conscious decision for her to push people away. She wouldn't admit it, but she probably accused you of using her for a one night stand, because she doesn't expect people to stick around for her, Castle." She sees him frown in confusion. "Her mom left her, her dad left her for years until he was sober, Will left her," she reminds him gently, "and those are just the people I know about."

"So what do I do?"

"I think you just keep doing what you're doing, Castle. You don't give up on her, you keep trying, you keep showing her that she can trust you, that you're not going to leave her. I think it's all you can do."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, let me know what you thought? Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Sorry, sorry, sorry! I cannot apologise enough for just disappearing for a month. Hopefully this rather long chapter will make up for it. I've been working continuously at this story for about a week now, so the last few chapters shouldn't be long coming.**

* * *

><p>Castle strolls off the elevator a day later with two takeaway coffees in hand, depositing one in front of Beckett as he stops at her desk.<p>

"I hear congratulations are in order."

"Yeah, what for?" she mutters, barely tearing her gaze away from the murder board to even give him – or the coffee – a cursory glance.

"Passing your firearms test yesterday, of course," he replies, removing his suit and folding it over the back of his old, squeaky chair. He never doubted Beckett's aim, but she doesn't know that. When she doesn't respond he simply settles himself in his seat and follows her gaze to look at the whiteboard, startling as he notices that he doesn't recognise any of the few things pinned upon it. "You caught a case and didn't call me?"

"Sorry, figured you had other stuff to do when Gina called."

He pulls a grimace, imagining how awkward that conversation has to have been. Beckett and his ex-wife… Not a good combination. He remembers missing a couple of her calls, but he hadn't thought that would warrant Gina trying the precinct instead.

"So, who died?"

Beckett shoots him a sharp glance for his nonchalant tone.

"Vic's name is Daniel Chen, worked in the HR department for a public relations firm downtown. He was stabbed – seemingly without motive – three times."

He nods and then stands, walking over to the board so he can look at the crime scene photos. Although the report from the morgue is in, there aren't any prints or fibres that look as if they're going to be useful in identifying a suspect. Unusually nothing pops and he has to shrug when he finds Beckett watching him expectantly. He doesn't have a wild theory for her to scoff at. Looking at the meagre collection of information, he's forced to admit that it looks a lot like a case of random violence, as much as he and Beckett hate those two words.

* * *

><p>"How do we have nothing?" Beckett moans two hours later, running her hands through her hair in frustration. "It's been two days and we still don't have anything other than the pick-up truck leaving the scene of the crime on CCTV. But the plates are hidden and there aren't any identifying marks on it. We don't even have any idea who was driving the car!"<p>

"Well, that's not quite true…" Ryan says with a smile as he approaches the desk and grins at them both until Beckett snaps at him out of impatience. "I finally got a hit on that truck after combing through violent crimes reports for the last three years. The truck was seen during a B and E seven months ago and-"

"-Please tell me we've got plates," Beckett requests.

"One witness was able to recall the number plate," he confirms. "I ran it through the DMV database and pulled this guy." Beckett snatches the proffered records photo from Ryan's fingers and takes a look at their suspect.

"Arnie Donner?"

"Yeah, I printed out everything we have on him. Quite the rap sheet he's got." He hands over those pieces of paper too rather than list of every offence Donner had been arrested for.

"Anything to suggest he knew our vic?"

"Not yet, but I'll keep digging," Ryan promises, grinning once more.

Satisfied, Beckett nods. "We'll go and show Daniel's sister this photo, see if he and Donner knew each other."

* * *

><p>Castle glances down the street as she slows the cruiser and parks at the end of Susie Chen's drive. It's pretty nice, as suburban streets go, though he could do without the many cars parked on either side of the road, he thinks. Mostly they're nothing out of the ordinary; it's the rusty-red truck – a total turn-around from the other sedans lining the sidewalks – that catches his eye.<p>

"Beckett… Isn't that the car from the CCTV?"

She looks down the street, eyes easily alighting upon the pick-up parked a couple of houses down – out of the way enough that were they not already on the lookout for it, it would have failed to draw their attention.

"Castle, you need to stay in the car," Kate says slowly, staring straight at him as she makes her point. "Donner is dangerous." She remembers briefly reading the reports of what kind of injuries their suspect has inflicted on his other victims – broken bones and internal bleeding are just the type of issues he's been able to manage when he isn't armed. She doesn't want to think about what could happen if Donner is in Susie Chen's house with a gun.

"But you can't go in alone," he argues.

"I'm calling for backup," she retorts, her tone brokering no argument.

Pulling her cell phone out of the glove box, she dials Esposito and Ryan first before putting in a call to New Rochelle's police precinct and a second to Pelham PD. The help from both units will be useful with their suspect – a criminal with a long history of violence. It won't take long for officers from either department to join them, but Kate doesn't want to wait. She knows that if Donner escapes, they won't find it easy to catch him again. Donner's been linked with other murders, but somehow usually manages to disappear, finding it easy to stay one step ahead of the police. Reminding Castle one last time not to move from his seat, she opens her door and steps out, taking her gun from her holster. The weapon is in her hand, aimed before her, as she approaches the front of the house, being careful to try to stay out of view.

She pushes the already open front door just wide enough to slip inside. She stands motionless for a moment, just listening before she cautiously starts forward.

As she moves, creeping through the house, her eyes are almost constantly moving, tracking over the stairs and down the hallway, before she pauses outside an open doorway. Stepping wide, she swivels and points her gun in front of her, but the kitchen is empty. Unless Donner is upstairs or has already left the house, there's only one other room for Beckett to check.

But that's the room where everything goes wrong. Silent as she's being, the carpet effectively cushioning each step she takes in her high-heeled boots, she's detected and tackled the second she gets close enough to the living room door.

She feels one of Donner's meaty hands wrap around her neck, lifting her clean off her feet as the other knocks her gun out of her fingers, batting it halfway across the room.

When Castle dashes into the room mere seconds later, he finds Beckett trapped behind bands of muscle. One of Donner's arms is across her ribs, holding her back against him, while the other is what positions an already bloody knife against her throat.

"Castle," she grits out, somehow managing to still sound one hundred percent pissed off with him despite the threat to her life. "Can't you just do what I tell you for once?"

Holding his hands up, he freezes. In the few seconds he manages to tear his eyes away from Beckett and that knife pressed so close to her, he notices all too quickly the lifeless body of Susie Chen sprawled on the floor.

Panic shoots through him and while he distractedly thinks that he should probably say something, try to diffuse the situation, he can't stop staring at the razor-sharp, red edge of the knife. A single slip of Donner's hand and it could easily slide straight through her skin. The image of that happening plays in his head, making his stomach churn. Where he stands in the doorway, he knows there's no way he'd be able to get there in time to do anything. It startles him when he finally stops seeing Kate falling to the floor with her hands trying to stop of the trail of red running down from the deep slit in her neck.

Responding the tightening of Donner's grip, she says, "You don't want to do this, Donner."

It's the sound of sirens quickly increasing in volume that does it. Donner's eyes harden and Castle knows he's set on a course of action that involves the knife disappearing somewhere inside Kate's body. Without thinking he launches himself across the room – his actions a surprise to all of its occupants, including himself – and grapples with the hand that holds the blade.

It happens in a flash. One moment she's rooted to the spot with the cool press of metal on her skin and the next she's free of Donner's weight. For a second she stands in surprise, before looking down and staring at Castle, slumped against the wall, and the blood blooming over the shoulder of his plum-coloured shirt unable to comprehend how that happened. Donner is nowhere to be seen, but his disappearance doesn't even register with her as she drops to her knees beside the mystery writer.

* * *

><p>"He got you," Castle mumbles, staring at the thin red line in the centre of her neck, but Beckett's more worried about the deep puncture in his shoulder rather than the scratch on her throat. That isn't serious – just an accident when the slight shake of Donner's hand had caused the blade to nick her skin. The amount of blood pooling around his stab-wound however is much more of a cause for concern. She doesn't think he's severed an artery, but she's not a doctor. What does she know?<p>

Pressing on the wound with one hand, Beckett simultaneously tries to the staunch the flow of Castle's blood while dialling for an ambulance.

"This is Detective Beckett, badge number 41319. I'm at 47 Washington Avenue and I've got an officer down."

The reply of the emergency response worker at the other end of the phone line is garbled to him in his semi-conscious state. The sudden push of Beckett's hands increasing the applied force to his injury startles him awake though.

"Come on, Castle, you have to stay awake," she says, desperation raising her voice. "The EMTs will be here any minute, but you can't go to sleep."

"Officer down? he asks weakly, "Thought I was just _playing _cop?"

Beckett tries for a laugh, only managing one of those odd exhales, something between a huff and a snort. Even in dire times he's trying to lighten the mood.

"What did you think you were doing?"

"He was going to slit your throat!" Castle exclaims, trying to push up from the floor only to receive a stern look and hands pushing him back down for his efforts.

"Backup was on the way," she says uncertainly, well aware that the local cops she'd requested were still yet to burst through the front door. "Professional backup," she adds as a reminder that he was supposed to follow her orders and stay in the car when he gives her a look that blatantly says he thought he was her backup.

A moment of silence falls between them, and she listens to the sirens drawing closer, wondering what the holdup could possibly be. There's no city traffic that could stop her requested reinforcements from arriving. But if the police are going to be that long, she wonders how long it'll be before Castle's ambulance arrives.

"How bad is it?"

Peeling away her hands slowly, she does her best to take a look at the wound before too much blood can seep out.

"Well?"

"I don't know, Castle. I'm not a doctor." It comes out irritable, stress and anxiety fraying her temper. If he'd just listened for once, he wouldn't be lying on the floor in front of her bleeding out. "It doesn't seem like there's much blood, but-"

"-Hey, it's fine. Sorry, I asked. I'm sure it's fine. I can barely feel it," he mutters, but she's not sure if that's a good thing.

* * *

><p>The ride to the hospital is agonising – for him because every single bump in the road jostles him and sends a flare of pain through the top left half of his chest and for her because he lost consciousness for a moment before the ambulance arrived and she has no idea if he's going to be okay. The paramedic riding in the back with them barely says a word, just applies the needed pressure to Castle's wound, and it's tearing her apart to not know what's going on. She still can't understand how all this happened. She's gone over it in her mind, but still can't quite connect the dots to comprehend how Donner's knife ended up under his collarbone instead of in her neck.<p>

"Why would you do something this stupid, Castle? Why couldn't you just wait outside?"

She doesn't realise she spoke aloud until he mumbles a reply that shocks her more than her own words. The combination of whatever they're pumping into system and his own adrenaline finally wearing away leaves him drowsy, resting his eyes as he lies on the gurney. But at the soft sound of his voice, she looks down to see him gazing at her quite lucidly.

"I wasn't going to just leave you alone. You're my…" He pauses for a moment, trying to find an apt description that conveys everything he feels for her. In his drugged daze, the word seems to evade him, leaving him to settle with, "Friend."

He's looking at her with such tenderness and she doesn't think anyone other than her parents has looked at her like that, like she's the whole world. If he hadn't just said those words, she'd blame the medication they're feeding through IV attached to his arm. It crashes into her then in the cramped space in the back of the ambulance and it's almost too much. If they weren't hurtling towards the hospital, she'd have thrown open the back doors and jumped out, but they're driving at speed and she can't just leave him. It's just too much – the realisation that he really feels something for her. God, she can't even bear to say the word.

* * *

><p>While the doctor treats him, she paces outside. Of course, she's not family, so staying in the room with him was immediately forbidden, though she still manages to interrogate nurses as they come and go from the ER.<p>

She doesn't know what's taking so long, but the wait is killing her. Anything could be happening behind the double doors she's not allowed through. He could be _dying _on the other side of the barricade between them. And she can't do a damn thing about it.

Throwing herself into a chair, she closes her eyes and attempts to stop thinking for a moment. The adrenaline that's been coursing through her system since she spotted Donner's car has yet to end and her feet refuse to rest on the polished tiles, bouncing continuously. Her hands life palm-up on her legs moving with her knees, creating a red blur. Feeling her stomach rebel at the sight, she leaps to her feet and dashes into the nearest bathroom before throwing up the meagre contents of her stomach. It takes a few moments before she can stand on shaky legs and cross to the sink, scrubbing furiously at her hands in an effort to get rid of his blood. All it is is a reminder that the man who somehow became her best friend threw himself in front of a knife for her. For _her_. Because he _loves _her.

The squeak of the door opening and someone else entering causes her to finish up, splashing water onto her face before she pats herself dry with a couple of those irritating paper towels, resuming her wait outside of the emergency room they wheeled Castle into as soon as they arrived.

She has no idea how long she sits there before a nurse in scrubs exits and looks around for a moment before approaching her.

"Detective Beckett?"

"Is it Castle?" She jumps to attention, worry pushing away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "How is he?"

"Mr Castle has been treated and moved to a ward-"

"-So he's okay?"

"The doctor was able to verify that he wasn't suffering from any internal damage and close the wound. We were worried that the knife might have severed the suprascapular nerve but it seems Mr Castle was very fortunate to have only torn muscle. The blade was prevented from doing severe damage by its trajectory. The downward curve of the stab wound indicates that the knife encountered the top of Mr Castle's ribcage and was impeded from further damage." Kate nods, struggling to process all the information

"I should call his family," she replies instead, wondering what on Earth she's supposed to say to him when she sees him. She knows she should have already called Martha and Alexis, feels guilty for having waited so long. But the idea of sharing in their grief, waiting with them for news had seemed worse than doing so alone. As she dials the number for the Loft on the cell phone, the nurse wanders away, giving her privacy.

* * *

><p>She'll just wait until his mother and daughter have arrived, just in case something goes wrong, she thinks, not wanting him to be alone even though she's yet to go to the ward and sit with him. Instead she hangs around the reception, thinking it best she's there to direct Martha and Alexis to his room as soon as they arrive.<p>

She hadn't counted on Castle and his persistence, however. Or considered the fact that he might send someone for her.

"Detective Beckett?" the receptionist calls, waiting until she stops at the desk before continuing. "Mr Castle's asking for you. Room 102." She has the phone resting against her shoulder, but as soon as she's done talking to Beckett, she places it back at her ear and says, "Detective Beckett is on her way up right now."

It doesn't feel like she can refuse. The receptionist has already turned back to her computer, assuming that she's going to go straight to his room and really what else can she do.

He's sitting up in bed waiting for her when she tentatively pushes open the door, relying on the same determination it took to get her into his book launch all those months ago. Aside from the pale blue gown he's wearing, his pale face and the slight bruise starting to form over one of his cheekbones, he looks almost normal.

"What no grapes?" he quips, already noticing the tight set to her mouth and how she's squared her shoulders. "I take a knife for you and you don't even bring me grapes?"

Humour. She can do that. "Sorry, I had a _bunch _of other issues to take care of."

"Couldn't even spare a few dollars for a nice bouquet of flowers?"

"I didn't realise you were so metrosexual, Castle," she teases. "Flowers? Really? You want me to go and buy you a bouquet of flowers?"

He chuckles quietly for a moment before the sound fritters away and they're left in silence again.

"Did Donner get away?" he finally asks.

She shakes her head, wondering why he doesn't remember her telling him that after she got the call in the back of the ambulance. "Police caught up with him a couple of blocks away."

He nods, seeming glad to hear the news.

"You didn't go after him…"

"Castle, you were bleeding out," she says, pointing towards his shoulder. She can just see the edge of the white dressing they've taped down to cover his stitches sticking out above the neckline of his hospital gown. "You didn't honestly expect me to just leave you there and let Donner get another victim attached to his record, did you?"

He stares at her for a second; opening his mouth just as the door Beckett's still standing just in front of gets thrown open.

"Dad!" Alexis rushes past her, practically throwing herself onto the bed so she can wrap her arms around her father's shoulders.

And in the flurry of movement as his family fuss over him, she slips from the room. She just needs some time to herself, some time to think things through.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Again, sorry for how long it's taken me to update. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you think!**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Thank you for continuing to read this story. As promised, here's the next chapter. I hope you all enjoy it! **

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><p>The call comes out of the blue, in the middle of the night. That alone is no oddity – they catch bodies in the wee hours of the morning all the time. What is unusual is that after he's forced his eyes open and accepted the call, yawning as he asks, "Beckett? What is it? A body?" she says, "No, it's not a murder, Castle."<p>

A moment of silence passes. He's not really awake yet and it takes him a while to realise she's still on the line and that she hasn't told him why she's called.

"Beckett? What is it?"

"Forget it." She's about to hang up, he can feel it. "I-I shouldn't have called-" It's the nervous tone, the stuttering that really gets him – he's _never _heard her sound like that before.

"-Beckett, wait, just tell me what it is," he requests, interrupting before she can end the call.

"C-Could you do something for me?"

"Name it," he replies, gritting his teeth as he sits up in the bed so that his eyes will stop closing every few seconds. He wants nothing more than to sink back into the sheets and let sleep consume him, make him forget about the pain in his shoulder, but if Beckett needs him than he'll be there for her.

"Do you think you could…come over?"

He twists to look at the alarm clock. Its green numbers mock him.

"Beckett, it's four o'clock in the morning-"

"-Like I said, forget about it. It's not important. Sorry I woke you." The words rush out so quickly that he doesn't even hear her hang up. Why would she ask him to come and see her if it wasn't important?

* * *

><p>Despite not having even been to bed, she's not tired. The zing of caffeine sings in her blood keeping her eyes wide open but even without it she doesn't think she'd be able to sleep, not when every time she closes her eyes she sees the life bleeding out of him. Even now, every time she glances down at her hands, she thinks they're still stained red from applying pressure to his wound. No, she's definitely too keyed up to sleep.<p>

Instead she paces the length of her apartment, literally unable to sit still for a second. Her mind whirrs, refusing to give her a moment's peace. Ever since she's left the hospital, she hasn't been able to stop thinking.

"_You didn't honestly expect me to just leave you there and let Donner get another victim attached to his record, did you?"_

She has no idea what he was going to say before Alexis and Martha arrived. The look on his face though, she can't help but worry that he was going to say yes. Is that what she's done to him, giving him the cold shoulder and keeping him at arm's length – made him think that she doesn't care about him at all? Because she does and she didn't realise just how much until he was bleeding in her arms.

Shame flashes through her as she remembers those times they fought, all the times she seems to have accidentally given him the impression that he doesn't matter to her.

"_It was a mistake, Castle, because you're a jerk, a shallow asshole who bought his way onto my team through his connections. It may be news to you, but I am not one of your airheaded bimbos looking for a one night stand so they have some sort of claim to fame. I do my job, Castle, because I want to find justice for people. You wanna know what happened to Katherine Harlow – the rebel version of me you were so keen on? She died right along with my mother. You wanna know what happened? My mother died and my father was a drunk, my boyfriend didn't give a shit about me because I was only going out with him in the first place to annoy my parents. I had nobody, nobody who cared about the fact that I couldn't cope. I found one of my mother's books just days after, you know, her copy of Hell Hath No Fury, and I realised who you were. She loved your books, you were her favourite author. But if she knew the real you, even she would have stopped reading your books. You should know that I'm not interested in one night stands anymore, Castle. But since you've finally got what you wanted, I guess you can quit with the stupid Nikki Heat excuse now and finally leave me in peace so I can do my job properly without you constantly interfering."_

She's hurt him, convinced him that she doesn't feel anything for him at all and she needs to fix it. Her phone is in her hand before she realises what she's doing and by that point it's too late. She's dialled his number. Belatedly she remembers that he's in the hospital and that even if he isn't asleep, his phone is probably switched off.

"Beckett? What is it? A body?"

Wrong. His phone is definitely not off. He probably isn't even in the hospital anymore, even though he should be.

"No, it's not a murder, Castle," she mumbles, falling into silence quickly as it occurs to her that she didn't think this through at all because she has no idea how to put what she wants to say into words. She drops to the couch with one of her hands over her eyes, simply trying to breathe through her panic.

"Beckett? What is it?"

"Forget it. I-I shouldn't have called-"

"-Beckett, wait, just tell me what it is."

"C-Could you do something for me?" she asks uncertainly.

"Name it."

"Do you think you could…come over?" She hopes that if he has to catch a cab to her apartment she'll have some more time to work out how to apologise and tell him how much he means to her.

She hears him groan even though the sound never actually leaves his lips. "Beckett, it's four o'clock in the morning-"

"-Like I said, forget about it. It's not important. Sorry I woke you."

She hangs up and stares at her phone for a moment before setting it on the table harder than is probably necessary. She just did it again, didn't she? She knows she balked instead of just taking the plunge. Groaning, she pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes before forcing herself up and away from the couch. Suddenly her apartment feels claustrophic, the walls pushing in on her. She needs fresh air against her skin, even if at this time of night it feels humid and moist.

* * *

><p>Her feet have carried her straight to Castle's apartment, the building on the corner of Broome Street and Crosby Street as recognisable to her now as the 12th, but maybe it's where she needed to go all along. She stares at the familiar façade before startling out of her daze and entering the building on autopilot.<p>

She has no idea what time it is, but the doorman is still there, giving her odd looks as she presses the button for the elevator and waits, rocking on the balls of her feet. As she steps inside, she smiles tremulously back at him until the doors close and shield her from view. Breathing a sigh of relief, she stands in one corner, chewing on her lip while the metal box slowly ascends to the top of the building.

Her heart is in her throat. Why is the elevator taking so long? For a moment she thinks that perhaps it's stopped between floors and the feeling of it rising is some kind of illusion. But then the doors slide open, almost soundlessly, and she can see his door. She's standing outside it, having already knocked when it occurs to her that she could be wrong. He could still be in the hospital. What will she say if his daughter or mother open the door?

She holds her breath as she hears the slide of the deadbolt and watches it swing open.

"Kate?"

It's Castle. All the breath she didn't know she'd been holding whooshes out of her, leaving her frame physically sagging, fingers gripping the doorframe tightly. Her eyes rapidly take stock of him, cataloguing the tousled look of his hair and the tired drooping of his eyelids. Aside from the obvious, he looks so much better than when she last saw him.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, opening the door wider with some effort as his left arm is pulled up in a sling and his right has to reach across his body.

"How long do you have?" she asks meekly, sidestepping past him and pausing to stand awkwardly in the middle of his apartment.

* * *

><p>He waits patiently, having escorted her to the couch and offered her a glass of water only for her to jump up and force him down onto his own sofa, insisting that he should rest. He doesn't turn and look, just listens to the sounds of her puttering around his kitchen, somehow knowing exactly where to find a tall glass despite only visiting the Loft a couple of times. Finally, she can delay no longer though and she walks back to him, putting her glass down on the coffee table before sitting down at the other end of the couch.<p>

"Where'd you go?" he asks just as she enquires about his shoulder.

"Shoulder's fine," he mutters, looking expectantly at her for an explanation. He call just by expression that she wants some elaboration, but really there's not much more to it. He wasn't strictly allowed to leave the hospital, but the doctors stitched him up well and other than the prescribed medication they've given him, he needs nothing else.

"I needed some breathing space, some time to think," she mumbles, twisting her glass around on the table so she can avoid looking at him. He's turned on just one small lamp, leaving the room semi-lit, half of his face in shadow so she has no idea how he's taking this. "So I went home. I didn't think you'd mind – you had your family with you."

He wants desperately to ask what she had to think about, but he worries that speaking will break the spell. That's the longest string of words he's heard leave her mouth since the hospital.

"I came to apologise." He blinks at that, but before he can ask what she has to be sorry for, she continues. "I was too harsh on you, Castle. I didn't give you a chance and I-"

"You what?" he breathes, almost afraid to ask. She's barely coherent, but he _thinks_ he knows what she's talking about. The wait is agony. He's already turned to face her and the urge to shift along the couch so that his knee presses into the side of her leg is overwhelming.

She gulps, the sound loud in the absence of any other noise.

"I regret it." She pauses, trying to gather herself so she can finish. And she has to finish, she has to tell him everything because if she doesn't do it now, she never will. "Castle, I- I shut myself away on purpose. When my mom-" Breathing raggedly, she takes another moment, shutting her eyes tight and willing away the tears she can feel forming. "I didn't have anyone I could turn to; I didn't trust that my dad wouldn't succumb to the bottle again. I didn't want to have to rely on someone who could let me down. So I started to hide it all, how I felt, bits of my personality… And, you know, no-one ever really tried to look for any of that stuff until you. Not even Will."

His free hand, the arm he has no trouble moving, goes of its own accord. His fingers lock onto her wrist and squeeze. His heart lurches for her because he doesn't understand how someone could have ever let her do that in the first place, how her family and friends didn't notice it happening. He can't imagine ever not being there for Alexis.

"That scared me, Castle. It still does," she mumbles, looking anywhere but at him. "Somehow, you _see_ me." She picks up her water and takes a great gulp, working up the courage to force out the next few words in the brief respite the small task offers. "I'm sorry, Castle." It's not what she meant to say but she can't stop the apology from repeatedly leaving her lips.

He moves again, shifting the two of them as best he can so they're face to face, sitting cross-legged.

"Stop."

But she can't.

"Kate, stop apologising," he requests again, changing his grip on her wrist to instead tilt her head, forcing her to finally meet his eyes.

He doesn't look angry, she thinks absently. But she knows he should be. He should be shouting at her. "Sorry, I'm so sorry, Castle."

"Why, Kate? Why are you sorry?"

"I didn't realise," she blurts, shaking her head because this is the worst part of the mess she's found herself in. "I didn't realise that it's not just about Nikki Heat until you were in that ambulance, looking at me like you-" She breaks off, she still can't say it.

"I do, you know, I love you. Maybe that's ridiculous because we've only known each other for nine months, and you hate me most of the time, but I can't help it. I love you," he says, shrugging his shoulders as he stares at her and slowly wipes his thumb under her eye, smudging her mascara in his effort to get rid of her tears.

"I don't hate you. Castle, I-I feel more for you than I've ever felt for anyone." God, that sounds pathetic, she thinks. The only consolation is that he doesn't seem to care. He's smiling at her, some kind of dopey grin that she's never seen before. Her heart stumbles and she has to laugh at herself. "And I didn't realise that either until I thought-"

She doesn't have to finish. Somehow he knows that the fact that his stabbing caused her revelations makes her feel even guiltier.

"Kate, it's okay. Sometimes we need the big things in life to push us."

She stares at him in shock. How is it he always has the words, that he always knows what to say?

* * *

><p>"I must look awful," she mutters after moments of silence, suddenly growing self-conscious of him looking at her and close they've ended up, knees joined and shoulders pressing into the back of the couch. She can feel her tears drying sticky under her eyes and on her cheeks with whatever's left of her makeup. She sees Castle open his mouth and darts in first before he can speak. "You better not have been about to say 'I've never looked more beautiful' or some other kind of bull, Castle."<p>

"I was going to say panda eyes are a good look on you," he jokes instead, earning a choked laugh from her.

"That bad, huh?"

"No, you still look gorgeous, just a little rough at the edges," he assures her, carefully wiping with his thumb once more. It surprises him when she catches his hand and holds it against her face, lips pressing at his wrist to take his breath away. "Kate," he murmurs.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: As I said earlier, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm already working on the next chapter, which is probably going to be the last (though there could end up being an epilogue of sorts.) As with the ninth chapter, it's going to be M rated, but I'll do the same thing as before and post a T rated version here and the M rated version with the other story, Notches on the Bedpost. Anyway, let me know what you thought of this chapter!**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: This chapter took a bit longer to get done because I had to make sure I had the M rated version completed and ready to post too. I hope you guys don't mind. As a reminder, if you want to read the M-rated version, that's the second chapter of Notches on the Bedpost. If you don't want to read it no worries – this chapter has the same storyline, just without the adult bits so you won't really be missing out on anything. Thank you for all the reviews to the last chapter!**

* * *

><p>"Kate," he murmurs.<p>

"Hmm?" she asks between pressing a second kiss to his palm and reaching out with her own hand to run her fingers over his jaw and the five o'clock shadow there. For a moment he squeezes his eyes shut tight, convinced he must still be in bed, dreams fulfilling one of the many fantasies he has about Kate Beckett. But when he opens them, she's still there, facing him with a half-smile, one lip trapped between her teeth, and her hand on his face. He can see the intent before she even moves, a grin of his own curving his lips just moments before her mouth descends on his.

It's a single press of her lips and then she's gone, leaving him wanting.

"What are you doing?" The words slip out before he can stop them, probably making him sound like a petulant five year old, but she just laughs, a light chuckle that reminds him of their day in the park with ice cream, the only remnant of innocent nineteen year old Kate.

Leaning towards him once more, she starts at the right corner of his mouth and moves left, each kiss lingering longer than the last.

"Better?" she asks, not even bothering to draw away from him.

"Almost," he replies, the low pitch of his voice vibrating against her lips. Sliding his hand through her hair, he rests his palm against the nape of her neck, allowing her no escape as he purposefully brushes his lips against hers again. The short strands of her hair brush his wrist as she tilts her head and for a few moments, he stops noticing anything other than the feel of her soft lips against his.

She tastes different; he thinks absently as she draws away and rests her forehead against his. Unlike last time, he can't taste a hint of vanilla. Instead the bitter tang of saltwater coats both of their lips now.

Staring at her lips, he wonders how she managed to end up effectively sitting in his lap without noticing. He can feel her weight settled against him now as well as the grip of her fingers in the right sleeve of his t-shirt. And as her lips are no longer working insistently against his, demanding his attention, he begins to notice everything else. The rapid rise and fall of her chest. The warmth of her breath over his chin. The light flush on her cheeks. The now familiar smell of cherries becoming more noticeable every time he runs his fingers through her hair. All of it widens his smile.

Taking his hand, Kate lifts herself from the couch and starts towing him towards the only other source of light, guessing that it's his bedroom. He walks slowly behind her, allowing her to set the pace and take in the details of his office and then his bedroom, the simple, masculine space he occupies. He notices her slight pause at the threshold but says nothing, just runs his thumb over the back of hand, marvelling once more at how soft and smooth it is.

* * *

><p>He stays awake longer than her, subconsciously wanting to be sure she's not intending to run again. It's obvious from how quickly she's relaxed in his bed, lying beside him with one of her legs intertwined between his and a hand resting easily atop his stomach however, that she's going nowhere. It puts him at ease and he drifts for a moment, simply enjoying the feel of having a weight beside him once more, a body that feels more right than either Meredith or Gina ever did. Unable to resist, he presses a sleepy kiss to whichever part of her face he can easily reach without having to lift his head from the pillow. It could have been her nose or her temple, he has no idea because, before he can look, he's falling asleep.<p>

* * *

><p>He wakes to startlingly bright eyes inches from his face.<p>

"Hi," he mumbles, yawning and wincing as his effort to stretch pulls on the stitches in his shoulder.

"You okay?" she questions, soothing her fingers down his neck. "Need some pain meds?" His bandages and the dressing keep her from seeing the damage, but she knows from experience how irritating stitches and healing wounds can be. And she's all too aware that she might have caused him more pain, much as she tried to be careful, during their night-time activities.

He grunts an affirmation and nods towards the ajar bathroom door.

"Top shelf of the medicine cabinet," he directs, watching her slither from the bed and walk naked into his bathroom, completely unabashed when she returns and catches him staring. She brings back his prescription and a tumbler of water, helping him to sit up and swallow two of the painkillers, before sitting back to simply look at him and appreciate him, this man forgiving man. "What?"

"Nothing," she responds slowly, shaking her head but smiling nonetheless. "Breakfast?"

* * *

><p>"Detective Beckett?"<p>

"Oh, hey Alexis, I thought I'd drop in on my way to work to see how your dad was doing," Kate says as she spots the redhead coming down the stairs, looking at her in confusion. "I took pity on him when I noticed him trying to flip pancakes one handed."

Castle sighs and fixes her with a mock glare, but it's true he couldn't quite manage the frying pan and the spatula with his left arm pulled up against his chest to keep him from moving it and tearing his stitches.

It doesn't take long for Martha to appear and kiss his cheek before sliding into her usual seat beside Alexis. And once Kate has finished frying the last of the batter, they eat together, the four of them.

Nobody says a word about the rumpled state of her shirt, or the fact that she's wearing leggings rather than the usual slacks she wears to work even though it's painfully obvious. In fact for a few moments nobody says anything at all.

"How's school, Alexis?" Kate asks haltingly, wanting to break the awkward silence.

"Fine, I guess. I'm presenting my English project today." She pauses to pop a small square of one of her pancakes into her mouth and chews it slowly before continuing. "It's an analysis of the recurrent themes in _Moby Dick_."

Eyes wide, Kate swallows, the unchewed food stretching her oesophagus until the strawberry and pancake can go no further and are lodged painfully somewhere in her throat. She coughs and splutters, face flushing red from embarrassment, though everyone else immediately leaps to their feet, worrying that it's the oxygen deprivation instead.

"Kate!"

Castle's hand pats her back, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary – sending her leaning forwards over her plate to no avail. Standing, he pulls out her chair and helps her out of it before wrapping one arm around her, squeezing tight and somehow managing a Heimlich manoeuvre. It takes a moment, but eventually she coughs again and expels the two offending objects over her plate, breathing deeply from the effort.

"I'm fine," she gasps, aware of the three of them hovering around her with looks of concern. She shifts and loses the thick band of muscle holding her against Castle's chest, whirling around as she remembers his injury and the fact that he'd been physically hauling her up and squeezing her middle. He has to have done something. "Oh, God, your shoulder!"

He shakes his head and squeezes her arm. "'m fine." It's gruff, but he can feel his mother and daughter watching them.

"Let me see it," she demands, fingers already darting to the hem of his t-shirt, the one she'd had to help him into. He can see from the fire in her eyes that she's not going to take no for an answer, so he spins and heads back towards his bedroom, expecting her to follow. As soon as they're away from his family's prying eyes, she begins carefully lifting the shirt up his body, pausing to undo his sling and hold his arm in position while her other hand works at pulling the sleeve of stretchy cotton over it. "Alexis knows, doesn't she?" she mutters as she peels away the tape holding his dressing down and inspects the stitches, gently pressing her fingers against the surrounding skin and gauging his reactions.

"Knows what?"

"About Katherine Harlow- about me."

"Oh." It brings him up short. He hasn't _told _Alexis, but he doesn't know if she's worked out herself that she once met Beckett before. "I don't know," he admits. "It's possible-"

"-You think?" she cuts in, accidentally poking him harder and making him wince. She mumbles an apology and replaces the dressing.

"She _is_ doing a project on _Moby Dick._ Maybe that's all there is to it."

"Maybe," Beckett concedes, still worrying her lip however. "I think your shoulder's fine by the way."

He nods and waits for her to tug his shirt back on before going back out into the kitchen, unsurprised to find his mother and daughter both watching the two of them.

If they didn't suspect something was going on between them before, they do now. And he's not sure that's what Beckett wants.

He stops worrying about that though ten minutes later when she's finished her breakfast and is getting ready to leave and go to work. It seems that stunning him with a quick kiss to his lips is just one of her preparations. Martha and Alexis stare after her too as she hurries to the front door and leaves, calling out a goodbye.

"Something you want to tell us, Richard?"

* * *

><p>She pauses on the other side of the door. Did she- Did she just kiss him? In front of his family?<p>

She did, didn't she?

Expecting to break into a panic, Kate presses her knuckles to her mouth but finds her fingers touching a smile instead. She presses her lips together and tries to hide it but a short laugh comes out instead. So what if his family saw her kiss him. It probably won't be the last time, she thinks, starting forwards again and heading to the elevator. She has a job to get to; she can't stand outside his apartment all day.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for reading this story! I'm still undecided as to whether this is going to get an epilogue added to it. Knowing me, I probably will end up doing something short but for now I'm going to mark this as complete. Those of you who have reviewed and encouraged me to keep going with this, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate that. Finding the words was tough at times, but we made it to the end and I hope you all enjoyed the journey. **


	21. Epilogue

**A/N: Yeah, so I succumbed to the epilogue… (Was it ever in doubt?) And because I just don't like the number 2 (seriously, I really don't like 2 as a number. Weird, I know.) , I'm adding a third chapter to Notches in the Bedpost that is supposed to be a missing M-rated part from this chapter. **

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><p><em>One month later<em>

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><p>Whistling to himself, Rick can't help swinging his arms exuberantly as he walks down the block and turns down a sidestreet where his favourite little coffee place is located. His month of limited activity, annoying itches that he couldn't reach and staying in the car and missing all the action is finally over. He's just left the hospital after being given a clean bill of health – the stitches are gone and the wound has healed nicely, leaving just a little pink line behind.<p>

She's already there, sitting at a table for two just in front of the window with her nose buried in a book – his book, to be exact. _Heat Wave _got finished relatively quickly in the end – not being able to join in many police escapades had left him with ample time to slowly type out the remainder of his novel with just one hand. Never again would he take his ability to touch type with both hands for granted. Witnessing his speedy progress, Beckett hadn't been shy in requested access to his advance copy.

"Hey," he greets as he sits down opposite her, grinning as she startles and drops his book. She's still yet to reply when he leans over the table, unrepentant, to kiss her cheek. Gesturing to her empty coffee cup, he asks, "Refill?"

She nods and waits until he's called over one of the passing baristas to order a Caramel Macchiato for himself and another vanilla syrup skim latte for her before mentioning his appointment. "How was it?"

"No sling," he replies, lifting his arm and waving at her. "Doc said it had healed up nice. Now I've just got a month of PT to look forward to."

Kate rolls her eyes at the slight whine he makes at the prospect of some hulked up man forcing him to do press-ups, or even worse, _pilates_. The expression turns into a soft smile as the barista returns with two plain white cups balanced on saucers and she catches sight of the heart swirled through the foamy top of her drink.

"Thank you," she murmurs, wrapping her fingers around the warm ceramic.

She's barely taken a sip when her phone rings and she sighs as the precinct flashes up as the caller.

"Beckett," she answers, looking at Castle and hoping this is just some sort of courtesy call and not a request to work on her day off. Two months ago getting called in on her day off wouldn't have bothered her – she'd have appreciated the chance to have something to do. Now, she bemoaned her busy job and the lack of time she had with Castle to try and figure out this thing going on with them.

Since he got stabbed, the two of them have spent far more time together outside of her job, raising eyebrows when for the first time she'd requested a few weekends of holiday time. But they are yet to attach any definitive terms to their tentative relationship.

"Detective," Montgomery replies. "I know it's your day off but Karpowski's down with flu. I need you in, sorry."

She holds in her groan and instead tells her Captain that she'll be in as soon as possible before hanging up. Downing as much of her latte, she shrugs her denim jacket back on and grabs her tote bag from the floor, sliding Castle's book inside.

She stands and walks around the table, heading for the front door only to turn back and ask, "You comin', Castle?"

"Right behind you." He scrambles up, only wincing slightly as he pushes away from the table using both of his arms, leaving both of their coffees cooling on the table with enough of the contents of his wallet to pay for them.

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><p>"You two living together now or something?" Esposito jokes as they exit the elevator together and walk to her desk, as perfectly in sync as a troop of soldiers on parade.<p>

Castle expects an eye roll or some kind of humorous retort; anything but the words that leave Beckett's mouth.

"So what if we are, Espo?"

He coughs a little, drawing her attention enough to receive a concerned glance and a squeeze at the elbow. She's still flicking her eyes at him every few seconds when they've settled into their respective chairs at her desk.

"You know I was joking with Espo to get him off our backs, right? I'm not suggesting we… move in together," she says, only pausing for the smallest of moments.

"I know," he replies, his voice coming out squeakier than he'd like. God he wants that though, her living with him, permanently in his space, sleeping beside him _every _night rather than on the odd occasion she didn't make it back to her apartment after dropping round to check on him and his healing shoulder.

"So what's up?"

"Nothing, you just caught me by surprise," he assures her, knowing neither of them are ready to live together – Kate would probably end up killing him in under a day if they did after he started rifling through her things.

She nods understandingly before mumbling, "I'm still serious about you though. You know that, right?"

He grabs her hand and squeezes comfortingly. She may not have told him she loves him yet, but she's shown him.

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><p><em>Two months later<em>

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><p>"Let yourself in," Castle whispers in Kate's ear, using the excuse of grabbing her empty Styrofoam cup to get close enough. He leaves his spare key just in front of her and walks away holding the two cups he intends to recycle, a jaunty whistle escaping him as he waits for the elevator.<p>

He smiles at her when he steps into the metal box and turns, finding her eyes on him.

The two _Ground Support Café_ cups go into the recycling bin by reception as he passes on his way out the door. He could hail a cab back to the loft, but it's a nice summer day – not too hot for once – so he thrusts his hands in his pockets and starts down the sidewalk, appreciating the early evening and the gentle breeze in his hair.

Despite walking, he still has time to change his clothes and get a start on dinner before he hears the sound of a key turning in the lock and knows she's there. For the first time, it's only going to be the two of them – his mother and Alexis having already left for the Hamptons to start their vacation.

She shuts the door quietly and stares at him for a moment, stirring something on the stove with the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows. She bites her lip at the sight and tries to calm down, but still somehow ends up crossing the room to stand behind him and wrap her arms around his waist.

Taking one of her hands, Rick squeezes first before raising it to his mouth and pressing his smile into her skin. She snorts quietly into his back at that before letting go and shifting around him so they're stood side by side. She surveys the kitchen worktop opposite her and the sprawling mess of various vegetable remains littering it, tutting internally, while he continues to face the stove and focus.

From nowhere, he procures a glass of wine, already three quarters full and offers it to her.

Despite knowing the drink is a diversionary tactic, a bribe of sorts, Kate takes it and wanders into the living room, sitting down to remove her boots and stretch her legs along the couch. Almost like he knows what she's going to ask, he remotely starts some music, allowing the relaxing strains of Sinatra to fill the silence around them.

Dinner is a soft affair, their socked feet playing footsie under the table.

"So, Tim cleared me for any and all physical activity today," Castle says eventually when they've finished the two little sponge desserts he'd whipped up, flicking his eyes at Kate catch her biting her lip and looking at him under her eyelashes.

"You gonna just sit there staring or are you gonna take me to bed, Castle?"

He swallows at her throaty tone and the blatant arousal she's looking at him with. How did they go from casual conversation over chocolate sponge to practically having sex with just their eyes?

Somehow when he stands, the movement is smooth and confident. His hand doesn't shake when he offers her it and helps her stand, gasping when she unexpectedly attaches her mouth to his and strokes her tongue inside, the both of them moaning at the taste of chocolate and wine.

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><p>"You said it, you know…"<p>

He holds his breath, cursing himself for somehow verbalising that errant thought. Without even realising, he tightens his arms around her, trying to stop her from leaving.

"I know," she says, craning her neck to meet his eyes. "I meant it."

"Y-you meant it?"

She nods and smiles, spreading her fingers wider over his chest so she can push herself upward and meet his gaze properly.

"I love you."

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><p><strong>AN: So, the end. I hope you guys liked this short, little addition. I mainly wanted to clear up some things from the last few chapters and show that the two of them are in a committed relationship where they've forgiven one another. Anyways, thanks for reading!**


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